c 

ton 


3bO 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


BIRD-SONGS  ABOUT  WORCESTER. 


Bl  RD-SONGS 


ABOUT 


WORCESTER. 


BY 


HARRY   LEVERETT    NELSON,  A.M.  ,VW- 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,   AND   COMPANY 
1889 


Copyright,  1889, 
BY  LITTLE,   BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come. 


I  rose  anon,  and  thoght  I  wolde  goon 
Into  the  wode,  to  here  the  briddes  singe, 
When  that  the  mysty  vapour  was  agoon, 
And  clere  andfeyer  was  the  morownyng. 

And  in  I  went  to  here  the  briddes  songe, 
Which  on  the  braunches,  bo  the  in  pleyn  and  vale, 
So  loude  songe  that  al  the  wode  ronge. 


INTRODUCTION, 


'""THE  letters  here  collected  were  first 
published  in  Worcester  newspapers. 
The  theme,  almost  universally  attractive, 
has  found  few  students  willing  to  devote  to 
it  that  degree  of  patient  observation  and 
comparison  necessary  to  its  knowledge. 
That  the  birds  are  singing  about  us,  that 
their  music  forms  part  of  the  great  har- 
mony of  Nature,  that  when  noblest  desires 
and  sweetest  anticipations  inspire  our  cour- 
age, then  are  our  cheerful  spirits  most 
nearly  in  tune  with  the  songs,  of  these 
unfeed  minstrels,  —  all  this  we  know. 

But  there  is  an  added  delight,  which 
they  who  seek  it  find,  in  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  singer,  in  possessing  per- 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

sonal  information  of  the  place  and  hour  of 
his  concert,  in  listening  for  his  vernal  over- 
ture, and  appreciating  the  brightening 
blessing  of  his  season's  farewell. 

"  Come,  hear  this  woman,  she  sings  like 
a  nightingale."  "  But  I  can  hear  the 
nightingale."  Not  altogether  wise  in  the 
philosopher  to  reject  the  one,  but  how  can 
we  excuse  neglect  of  the  other  ? 

In  the  rural  city  where  the  writer  of  the 
letters  lived,  it  came  to  many  as  a  matter 
of  surprise  that  there  was  so  much  to 
study,  so  ample  a  source  of  gratification  in 
the  birds  about  us.  Filled  as  they  are 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  the  true  lover,  the 
letters  served  as  a  guide  for  others  to 
pleasures  not  before  revealed. 

On  the  sixteenth  of  August,  eighteen 
hundred  and  eighty-nine,  HARRY  LEVER- 
ETT  NELSON,  then  hardly  past  the  por- 
tals of  his  professional  career,  was  quietly 
turned  aside  into  that  silent  path  which 
leads  we  know  not  whither.  Reflections 
such  as  have  here  been  imperfectly  ex- 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

pressed,  persuaded  several  of  his  friends 
that  his  letters  in  more  permanent  form 
would  be  welcomed  by  former  readers  and 
find  appreciation  in  wider  circles.  In  this 
belief  we  present  them  just  as  they  came 
from  his  pen,  with  but  the  corrections  of 
a  careful  proof-reader.  We  have  added 
a  letter  on  another  topic,  which  seemed 
to  us  of  interest 

R.  H. 

C  F.    A. 

C.   M.  R 

WORCESTER,  MASS., 

November ;  1889. 


CONTENTS. 


LETTER  PAGE 

I.    APRIL  BIRDS 9 

II.     APRIL  BIRDS  (Continued)       ...  20 

III.  APRIL  BIRDS  (Concluded)       ...  31 

IV.  MAY  BIRDS 43 

V.     MAY  BIRDS  (Continued)     ....  55 

VI.      JUNE  BIRDS 67 

VII.    MIDSUMMER  SONGSTERS    ....  79 
VIII.    BIRD  NOMENCLATURE.  —  SOME  ENG- 
LISH AND  AMERICAN  BIRDS  ...  90 
IX.     THE  BIRDS  OF  PRINCETON     .     .     .  100 
X.     OFF    CAPE    COD.  —  WHALING    IN 

MASSACHUSETTS  BAY     .    .     .     .  113 


BIRD-SONGS  ABOUT  WORCESTER. 


I. 


APRIL   BIRDS. 

WORCESTER,  April  9,  1887. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR, — In  contribut- 
ing this  series  of  letters  to  your  esteemed 
paper  I  am  realizing  an  idea  I  have  long 
had  in  mind  of  attempting  through  your 
columns  to  awaken  some  general  interest 
in  the  study  of  bird  songs.  In  pursuance 
of  this  idea  I  shall  endeavor  in  this  letter 
to  describe  the  songs  of  some  of  our  earli- 
est birds,  which  it  will  be  comparatively 
easy  to  master  thus  early  in  the  season, 


10      BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

before  the  arrival  of  the  countless  hosts 
of  others,  which  will  soon  make  their  ap- 
pearance from  the  South.  I  trust,  also, 
that  I  shall  be  able  to  facilitate  this  study 
by  the  method  I  shall  adopt  of  describing 
actual  walks  about  Worcester,  and  of  re- 
ferring continually  to  well-known  and  ac- 
cessible localities. 

Yesterday  was  a  cloudless  April  day, 
and  the  sun  tempered  the  chilliness  in  the 
air  caused  by  the  snow-banks  along  the 
roadside.  As  I  walked  up  Highland  Street 
by  Mr.  Salisbury's  house,  my  ears  were 
at  once  saluted  by  the  pretty  trills  of  the 
song-sparrow  (mefosptea  melodid)  issuing 
from  the  orchard  and  fields  west  of  the 
house.  At  this  season  this  beautiful  singer 
cannot  be  mistaken,  uttering  three  or  four 
pipes,  or  whistles,  followed  by  canary-like 
trills  and  quavers,  not  very  loud,  but 
spirited  and  vivacious.  There  is,  perhaps, 
no  other  of  our  birds  whose  song  varies  so 
much  in  detail  and  execution,  though  the 
quality  and  theme  are  always  the  same, 
and  sometimes  the  same  singer  will  give 


APRIL   BIRDS.  II 

us  five  or  six  different  variations  in  rapid 
succession  without  changing  his  perch. 
The  little  vesper-sparrow  (pooccetes  gram- 
ineus\  which  will  now  soon  be  with  us, 
pours  forth  a  song  so  similar  to  some  of 
these  variations  that  it  requires  consider- 
able practice  and  study  to  distinguish 
them  with  certainty.  Until  the  robins  are 
in  song,  this  modest  little  song-sparrow, 
in  his  plain  brown  suit,  furnishes  nine- 
tenths  of  our  bird  music.  Proceeding  up 
Highland  Street  I  am  greeted  with  its  song 
from  all  parts  of  Elm  Park.  This  bird 
has  been  with  us  now  for  three  or  four 
weeks,  and,  like  the  blue-bird,  has  been 
filling  the  bleak,  barren  fields  with  its 
music  since  its  first  appearance. 

All  the  way  up  the  street  the  much- 
abused  English  sparrows  kept  up  a  con- 
stant chatter  to  the  south  towards  the 
city,  while  to  the  north,  especially  among 
the  evergreens  opposite  the  Merrifield 
estate,  the  slate-colored  snow-birds  (junco 
hyentalis)  were  everywhere  to.  be  seen. 
These  snow-birds,  with  their  ashy-black 


12      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

backs,  white  bellies,  and  white  lateral  tail- 
feathers  opening  and  shutting  like  a  fan 
as  they  fly  before  you,  are  for  the  first 
few  weeks  in  April  more  numerous  than 
the  individuals  of  all  other  species  com- 
bined. Although,  as  their  name  implies, 
they  occasionally  stay  with  us  through  the 
winter  months,  they  are  much  more  abun- 
dant in  the  early  spring  and  late  fall.  By 
the  first  of  May  they  will  nearly  all  have 
left  for  the  White  Mountains  and  the 
North,  where  they  pass  the  summer.  I 
have,  however,  seen  a  few  pairs  near  the 
summit  of  Mount  Wachusett  in  the  sum- 
mer, and  have  no  doubt  that  they  breed 
there.  Numerous  as  are  the  snow-birds, 
they  contribute  but  little  to  our  spring 
music,  their  only  song  being  an  occasional 
low  jingle,  not,  however,  unpleasing  to  the 
ear.  In  the  Park  I  found  these  birds  un- 
usually abundant.1 

1  Nuttall  says  that  the  song  of  the  snow-bird  is  "  a 
few  sweet,  clear,  and  tender  notes,  almost  similar  to  the 
touching  warble  of  the  European  robin  red-breast." 
It  is  among  the  finer  and  more  delicate  forecastings  of 
earliest  spring.  —  EDS. 


APRIL  BIRDS.  13 

As  I  stand  in  the  road  opposite  Elm 
Park,  I  hear  first,  away  off  toward  Sunny- 
side,  and  then  from  the  slopes  of  Newton 
Hill,  the  soft,  homesick  warble  of  the  blue- 
bird (sialia  sialis).  It  is  impossible  not 
to  recognize  the  half-pathetic,  tremulous 
note,  so  different  from  the  cheerful  ditty 
of  the  song-sparrow,  with  which  it  most 
frequently  blends  during  the  frosty  days 
of  March  and  April.  The  bluebird  has 
been  with  us  nearly  a  month,  and  is  al- 
ready pairing  and  beginning  preparations 
for  setting  up  housekeeping  in  some  mar- 
tin-box before  the  door,  or  in  some  de- 
serted woodpecker's  hole  in  the  woods  or 
fields. 

On  the  morning  of  the  3ist  of  March, 
walking  along  Pleasant  Street,  west  of 
Newton  Hill,  I  was  surprised  to  hear  from 
the  snow-covered  meadow  below  the  pierc- 
ing, long-drawn-out  whistle  of  the  meadow- 
lark  (sturnella  magna).  It  is  a  veritable 
spring  sound,  fresh  and  strong,  cleaving 
the  frosty  air  like  a  knife.  It  is  simple  as 
the  curve  in  form,  beginning  low,  ascend- 


14      BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT    WORCESTER. 

ing  and  strengthening,  and  then  descend- 
ing. The  larks  may  always  be  heard  a 
little  later  in  the  season  in  the  fields  by 
Salisbury's  Pond,  east  of  the  boulevard, 
and  in  the  fields  south  and  east  of  the 
Technical  School,  and  I  have  even  heard 
them  on  West  street,  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  tennis-courts.  This  is  one  of  our 
handsomest  native  birds,  with  his  conspic- 
uous yellow  breast  and  martial  bearing, 
and  may  be  easily  recognized  by  his 
peculiar  hovering  flight,  not  unlike  the 
soaring  of  the  hawk,  and  by  his  white 
tail-feathers. 

The  robins  (turdus  migratorius)  have 
been  with  us  in  abundance  for  two  weeks, 
but  though  I  heard  them  yesterday  on  all 
sides  screaming  and  calling,  none  were 
yet  in  song.  The  spring  carnival  had  not 
yet  begun.  For  the  rest  of  the  month, 
however,  these  thrushes  will  be  musical 
enough.  April  is,  par  excellence,  the  robins' 
month.  The  wood-thrush  and  veery  wait 
for  May;  but  what  is  sweeter  and  more 
inspiring  than  the  strong,  profuse  song 


APRIL    BIRDS.  15 

of  the  robin  which  he  carols  forth  for  an 
hour  at  a  time  in  the  April  twilight 
from  some  leafless  tree  in  the  pasture  or 
orchard? 

Since  writing  the  above,  on  the  evening 
of  the  date  of  this  letter,  I  have  heard 
robins  in  full  song  all  along  Harvard 
Street,  and  they  have  now,  undoubtedly, 
generally  begun  singing  in  all  parts  of 
the  city: 

Another  bird,  which  comes  in  April,  or 
even  in  March,  is  the  phoebe-bird  (sayornis 
ftiscus),  the  pioneer  of  the  fly-catchers. 
Its  cheerful  and  rapidly  repeated  phee-bee, 
phee-bee,  phee-bee  is  its  spring  note.  In 
the  summer  we  hear  phe-ee-bee,  phe-ee-bee, 
slower,  sadder,  and  more  in  accordance 
with  the  advancing  season. 

The  common  chickadee,  or  black-capped 
titmouse  (parus  atricapillns),  has,  in  addi- 
tion to  its  ordinary  dee-dee-dee,  a  spring 
note  so  much  like  the  later  note  of 
the  phcebe  that  they  cannot  easily  be 
distinguished.  I  have  never  seen  the 
pretty  note  of  the  chickadee  mentioned  in 


1 6      BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

any  book  but  Thoreau's  •"  Early  Spring  in 
Massachusetts,"  edited  by  Mr.  H.  G.  O. 
Blake.  I  first  heard  it  myself  on  a  bright, 
sunny  day,  toward  the  end  of  February, 
on  Kendall  Street.  The  chickadee  is  one 
of  our  very  few  birds  that  stay  with  us 
all  the  year  round,  and  it  is  also  one 
of  the  few  birds  that  have  inspired  the 
native  muse.  Mr.  Emerson's  "  Titmouse  " 
ranks  with  his  "  Humble-bee  "  among  the 
most  popular  and  well-known  of  his 
poems. 

Yesterday  I  saw  a  pair  of  white-bellied 
nuthatches  (sitta  carolinensis)  in  an  orchard 
near  Kendall  Street,  and  heard  their  harsh, 
rasping  qua-qtia-qtia,  which  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  mistake.  Last  fall  they  were 
abundant  all  through  the  neighborhood, 
and  were  very  conspicuous  with  their 
glistening  dark-blue  backs  and  heads,  white 
breasts,  and  queer,  short  tails.  Like  the 
chickadee,  the  nuthatch  lives  on  the  larvse 
in  the  bark,  and  he  is  our  only  bird  that 
hangs  head  downward  as  he  creeps  around 
the  trunk  in  his  search  for  food.  The  nut- 


APRIL   BIRDS.  I/ 

hatch  breeds  far  north  of  us,  whither  he 
will  soon  be  hastening.1 

The  pigeon  woodpecker,  or  high-hole, 
or  flicker  (colaptes  auratus},  is  a  character- 
istic April  bird,  which,  unlike  the  nuthatch, 
comes  to  tarry,  and  though  I  have  as  yet 
missed  his  long,  loud  tf-if-if-if*  reminding 
one  somewhat  of  the  scream  of  the  robin, 
yet  it  will  soon  be  heard  re-echoing  through 
the  outskirts  of  the  city.  Though  a  hand- 
some, jaunty  fellow,  he  is  much  fonder  of 
being  heard  than  seen,  which  seems  all 
the  stranger,  as  his  voice  is  far  from  pleas- 
ing or  musical. 

The  blue  grackle,  or  crow-blackbird 
(quiscalus  versicolor)  is  already  abundant 
in  the  Rural  Cemetery,  one  of  his  favorite 
haunts,  and  it  is  amusing  indeed  to  watch 
him  lift  his  wings  and  jerk  up  his  tail  in 
his  desperate  efforts  to  sing,  all  resulting 
in  the  most  pitiful  wheezing  and  sput- 
tering,—  the  mere  parody  of  a  musical 
performance. 

1  The  white-bellied  nuthatch  sometimes  breeds  in 
Massachusetts.  —  EDS. 

2 


1 8       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

The  loud  conqueree  of  the  red-shoul- 
dered blackbird  {agelaius  phceniceus)  is  al- 
ready heard  among  the  marshes  of  North 
Pond,  and  the  long,  sliding,  monotonous 
chant  of  the  common  little  chipping-spar- 
row  (spizella  socialis)  \  have  suspected  that 
I  heard  once  or  twice  from  our  orchard, 
but  the  real  flight  of  this  species,  it  is 
clear,  is  hardly  yet  begun. 

Within  the  next  week  or  two  the  purple- 
finch  and  the  goldfinch,  the  vesper-spar- 
row and  the  field-sparrow  will  have  put  in 
an  appearance ;  but  with  these  exceptions 
there  will  be  few  prominent  arrivals  be- 
fore the  first  of  May.  Not  till  then,  at  the 
earliest,  may  we  expect  the  brown-thrush 
and  the  cat-bird,  the  wood-thrush  and  the 
veery,  the  orioles  and  the  bobolinks,  the 
vireos,  and  the  host  of  warblers  that  come 
by  the  first  of  June. 

I  would  say  in  conclusion  to  this  letter 
that  any  of  your  readers  who  may  be  in- 
terested in  the  subject  of  birds  and  their 
singing  will  find  the  first  chapter  of  John 
Burroughs'  "  Wake  Robin,"  and  the  chap- 


APRIL   BIRDS.  19 

ter  in  Bradford  Torrey's  "Birds  in  the 
Bush"  entitled  "A  Bird  Lover's  April," 
delightful  and  profitable  reading  regard- 
ing our  early  birds.  I  must  not  omit  to 
mention  also  a  book  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to,  Thoreau's  "  Early  Spring  in 
Massachusetts,"  comprising  extracts  from 
his  journal,  which,  however,  brings  down 
the  season  only  to  about  the  eighth  of 
April.  • 


II. 

APRIL  BIRDS  (CONTINUED). 

WORCESTER,  April  19,  1887. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  Since  my 
last  letter  the  vesper,  field,  and  chipping 
sparrows,  the  purple-finch,  goldfinch,  and 
blue-backed  swallows  have  made  their  ap- 
pearance from  the  South,  the  robins  have 
been  singing  everywhere,  the  pigeon-wood- 
pecker has  begun  to  shout,  and  the  snow- 
birds have  been  growing  fewer  daily.  The 
recent  unseasonable  weather,  and  yester- 
day's heavy  snow-storm,  have  probably 
checked  somewhat  the  onward  tide  of  mi- 
gration; but  this  is  only  temporary,  and 
the  season's  steady  advance  is  but  little 
retarded.  As  most  of  our  early  birds  are 


APRIL   BIRDS.  21 

finches  or  sparrows,  which  live  on  the 
seeds  of  plants  and  weeds,  they  have  been 
put  to  little  inconvenience  by  the  weather, 
for,  so  long  as  their  food  supply  is  am- 
ple, it  is  well  known  that  with  their  warm 
clothing  and  highly  organized  systems,  the 
birds  are  insensible  to  the  extreme  cold. 

The  most  conspicuous  arrival  of  the  last 
few  days  is  the  vesper-sparrow,  or  bay- 
winged,  bunting,  or  grass-finch  (jtooccztes 
graminens).  Up  to  the  fifteenth  of  the 
month,  of  all  his  tribe,  the  song-sparrow 
had  reigned  supreme,  but  during  the  night 
of  the  fourteenth  (for  it  is  now  well  estab- 
lished that  birds  make  their  migrations  in 
the  night-time)  there  was  a  great  flight  of 
baywings.  On  the  morning  of  the  fif- 
teenth, in  the  orchard  north  of  Highland 
Street,  just  beyond  Elm  Park,  I  saw  a 
flock  of  fifty  or  a  hundred;  and  numerous 
individuals  were  singing  freely,  both  in 
the  orchard  and  all  along  the  side  of  New- 
ton Hill  opposite.  They  are  much  more 
abundant  now  than  they  will  be  later  in 
the  season,  as  the  great  body  will  proceed 


22       BIRD -SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

farther  north,  leaving  behind  only  a  small 
fraction  of  their  number  to  spend  the  sum- 
mer with  us  here  in  Massachusetts.  The 
song  of  this  species  is  strikingly  like  the 
song  sparrow's,  but  the  voice  is  not  so 
loud  and  ringing,  and  the  two  or  three 
opening  notes  are  less  sharply  empha- 
sized. In  general  the  difference  between 
the  two  songs  may  be  well  expressed  by 
saying  that  the  one  is  more  declamatory, 
the  other  more  cantabile^  —  a  difference 
such  as  might  have  been  expected,  con- 
sidering the  nervous,  impetuous  disposition 
of  the  song-sparrow  and  the  placidity  of 
the  baywing.  The  sparrow  may  be  easily 
identified  by  its  size,  which  is  considerably 
larger  than  that  of  the  song-sparrow,  and 
by  the  two  white  lateral  quills  of  his  tail, 
—  less  conspicuous,  however,  than  in  the 
snow  bird,  since  there  we  have  white 
against  black,  while  here  we  have  white 
against  brown.  John  Burroughs  finds  in 
this  little  vesper-sparrow  one  of  his  favor- 
ite birds.  Of  him  he  says :  "  Not  in 
meadows  or  orchards,  but  in  high,  breezy 


APRIL  BIRDS.  23 

pasture-grounds  will  you  look  for  him. 
His  song  is  most  noticeable  after  sun- 
down, when  other  birds  are  silent,  for 
which  reason  he  has  been  aptly  called  the 
vesper-sparrow.  Two  or  three  long  silver 
notes  of  rest  and  peace,  ending  in  some 
subdued  thrills  or  quavers,  constitute  each 
separate  song.  Such  unambitious,  uncon- 
scious melody !  It  is  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  sounds  in  nature.  The 
grass,  the  stones,  the  stubble,  the  furrow, 
the  quiet  herds  and  the  warm  twilight 
among  the  hills,  are  all  subtilely  expressed 
in  this  song ;  this  is  what  they  are  at  least 
capable  of.'1 

All  along  the  ridge  of  hills  on  Burncoat 
Street,  from  Adams  Square  to  the  Summit, 
these  birds  are  unusually  abundant  all 
through  the  season. 

The  field-sparrow,  or  bush-sparrow 
(spizella  pusilla),  though  closely  allied  to 
the  familiar  chipping-sparrow,  whom  he 
strongly  resembles  in  size  and  general  ap- 
pearance, is  usually  found  remote  from 
the  abodes  of  man,  either  on  the  edge  of 


24       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

the  woods  or  in  the  waste  pasture-lot 
overgrown  with  under-brush.  His  song 
is  simplicity  itself,  consisting  of  two  or 
three  introductory  whistles,  followed  by 
a  whistle  long  and  vibrating,  but  without 
trills  or  other  embellishments.  I  often 
hear  it  near  the  border  of  the  woods  on 
the  southwest  slope  of  Millstone  Hill, 
towards  the  city,  and  on  the  bushy  hillside 
beyond  Sunnyside,  east  of  Peat  Meadow. 
The  field-sparrow  enjoys  the  distinction 
of  singing  all  summer  long,  even  during 
the  heat  of  the  dog-days,  long  after  most 
other  birds  have  become  silent.  This 
bird  I  have  heard  once  or  twice  this 
spring,  though  as  yet  it  has  hardly  become 
abundant. 

Of  all  the  members  of  the  sparrow  fam- 
ily that  stay  with  us  to  breed,  the  purple 
finch,  or  linnet  (carpodacus  purpureus), 
is  the  finest  musician.  Only  the  adult 
male  is  purple,  however,  and  even  he,  ac- 
cording to  Burroughs,  looks  as  if  he  had 
been  dipped  in  pokeberry  juice  and  taken 
out  before  the  dyeing  process  was  half 


APRIL   BIRDS.  25 

finished.  The  female  and  the  young  male 
are  clad  in  plain  brown.  This  finch  ap- 
pears in  the  spring,  just  when  the  elm- 
trees  are  beginning  to  leaf  out,  and  he  is 
supposed  to  feed  on  the  bursting  buds,  to 
the  no  great  benefit,  I  fancy,  of  the  tree. 
I  have  not  yet  heard  him  about  Worces- 
ter, but,  spending  last  Sunday  in  Ux- 
bridge,  where  the  season  is  much  more 
advanced  than  here,  I  was  awakened  early 
in  the  morning  by  his  loud,  warbling  song 
proceeding  from  the  old  elm-tree  in  front 
of  the  farm-house. 

The  long,  piercing  note  of  the  lark,  aris- 
ing from  the  meadows  along  the  river, 
contrasted  strangely  with  the  song  of  the 
linnet,  the  two  producing  a  curious  and 
rather  unusual  medley. 

The  purple  finch  has  a  wonderfully 
sweet  and  protracted  warble,  the  notes  fol- 
lowing one  another  with  surprising  rapid- 
ity, surpassing  in  this  respect,  Burroughs 
says,  the  music  of  almost  any  other  bird. 
There  is  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  song 
of  the  warbling  vireo,  and  it  was  undoubt- 


26       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

edly  this  finch  which  Thoreau  tells  us  in 
his  journal  he  heard  in  April,  and  was  un- 
able to  identify,  but  would  have  judged  to  be 
the  warbling  vireo  had  it  not  been  much 
too  early  in  the  season  for  the  arrival  of 
this  bird.  With  the  exception  of  the  robin 
and  the  chipping-sparrow,  the  purple  finch 
is  the  earliest  of  the  birds  that  are  equally 
common  in  the  country  and  along  the  city 
streets.  Last  season  I  heard  him  early  in 
April  in  one  of  the  elms  on  Belmont 
Street,  in  front  of  the  schoolhouse,  and 
some  weeks  afterwards  was  surprised  to 
find  him  singing  in  a  maple-tree  on 
Chestnut  Street.  This  bird  is  an  excellent 
example  of  the  unequal  distribution  of 
certain  species  of  birds  through  different 
parts  of  the  country.  He  was  formerly 
rare  about  Worcester,  but  of  late  years  'has 
become  pretty  abundant,  while  in  some 
parts  of  the  State  he  is  almost  never  seen. 
About  Cambridge  both  the  purple  finch 
and  the  house  wren  are  said  to  be  very 
abundant.  About  Worcester  the  wren  is 
extremely  rare. 


APRIL  BIRDS.  27 

On  the  afternoon  of  Easter  Sunday, 
while  walking  on  West  Street,  I  heard  a 
goldfinch  in  full  song.  The  American 
goldfinch  (chrysomitris  tristis),  when  in 
full  spring  plumage,  is  one  of  the  hand- 
somest of  our  birds,  with  his  bright  yellow 
body  and  jet  black  wings.  This  bird  and 
the  yellow  warbler  are  indiscriminately 
called  "  yellow  birds,"  though  the  name 
seems -more  appropriate  to  the  warbler, 
which  is  yellow  all  over.  The  goldfinch, 
however,  is  much  the  finer  singer,  belong- 
ing to  the  same  family  as  the  canary 
and  our  own  sweet  singing -sparrows. 
The  song,  twitter,  and  call-note  of  this 
finch  are  wonderfully  like  the  canary's, 
and  as  a  whole  flock  will  often  sing  in  cho- 
rus, you  may  get  some  conception  of  the 
effect  of  such  a  concert  if  you  will  imagine 
fifty  canaries  thus  engaged  out  of  doors. 
The  goldfinch,  like  the  purple  finch,  may 
almost  be  called  a  city  bird,  as  he  is  often 
seen  about  our  lawns  and  gardens.  He 
is,  however,  especially  fond  of  evergreen 
trees,  and  in  the  Rural  Cemetery,  where 


28       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

these  trees  abound,  he  is  very  abundant. 
The  goldfinch  sometimes  remains  with  us 
in  sheltered  places  through  the  winter, 
when  he  loses  his  brilliant  plumage  and 
takes  on  a  sort  of  dull-green,  neutral  tint. 

One  of  the  commonest  and,  before  the 
advent  of  the  English  sparrow,  perhaps 
the  most  familiar  and  sociable  of  our 
birds,  is  the  little  chipping-sparrow 
(spizella  socialis),  with  his  russet-colored 
crown  and  plain  ashy-gray  breast.  Only 
the  scouts  of  the  great  body  have  as  yet 
arrived,  but  within  a  very  few  days  now 
every  garden  in  the  city  will  resound  with 
the  long  sliding  chant.  Bradford  Torrey, 
speaking  of  the  song  of  this  bird,  says: 
"Who  that  knows  it  does  not  love  his 
earnest,  long-drawn  trill,  dry  and  tuneless 
as  it  is?  I  can  speak  for  one,  at  all  events, 
and  he  always  has  an  ear  open  for  it  by 
the  middle  of  April.  It  is  the  voice  of  a 
friend,  —  a  friend  so  true  and  gentle  and 
confiding  that  we  do  not  care  to  ask 
whether  his  voice  be  smooth  and  his 
speech  eloquent." 


APRIL  BIRDS.  29 

Some  writers  have  compared  the  song 
of  this  sparrow  to  the  clicking  sound  pro- 
duced by  the  rapid  and  repeated  striking 
together  of  two  pebbles.  This  little  bird, 
according  to  Wilson  Flagg,  is  always  the 
first  performer  in  the  early  morning  con- 
cert, trilling  his  humble  song  while  it  is 
still  dark,  even  before  the  robins  are  yet 
awake ;  and  though  I  am  unable  to  cor- 
roborate this  by  personal  experience,  I  do 
remember  hearing  its  song  last  June  from 
a  cherry-tree  in  our  garden  at  ten  o'clock 
at  night. 

In  the  first  flush  of  my  ornithological 
studies  I  remember  how  long  it  took  me 
to  associate  this  simple  little  song,  which  I 
heard  everywhere,  in  city  and  country 
alike,  with  the  chipping-sparrow.  At 
that  time  I  had  never  seen  it  mentioned 
in  the  books,  and  I  was  long  convinced 
that  it  must  belong  to  some  rare  warbler 
which  had  suddenly  become  abundant  in 
this  vicinity.  My  experience  in  regard  to 
this  bird,  and  many  others  as  well,  would 
lead  me  to  advise  all  other  students  of 


30       BIRD-SONGS  ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

bird-songs  to  hesitate  long  before  attrib- 
uting a  new  and  unknown  song  to  any 
of  our  rarer  and  accidental  birds.  Very 
few  such  birds  will  be  heard  in  an  entire 
season. 

When  at  Uxbridge,  Sunday,  while  lis- 
tening to  the  song  of  the  purple  finch,  I 
saw  a  pair  of  white-bellied  swallows 
(tachycineta  bicolor)  flying  far  over  my 
head  in  the  blue  sky.  This  swallow  is  the 
first  of  his  family  to  make  his  appearance 
in  the  spring,  and  after  the  purple  martin, 
rare  about  Worcester,  is  the  handsomest 
swallow  we  have.  It  is  not,  however, 
nearly  so  common  here  as  the  barn-swal- 
low, being  much  more  abundant  on  the 
sea-coast  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  large 
lakes.  Before  the  white  man  came  here 
the  swallow  built  its  .nests  in  hollow  trunks 
of  trees,  and  still  does  so  in  unsettled  parts 
of  the  country,  but  in  this  vicinity  it  gen- 
erally nests  in  martin-boxes  prepared  for 
its  reception. 


III. 

APRIL  BIRDS  (CONCLUDED). 

WORCESTER,  April  30, 1887. 

DEAR  MR.  EDITOR, —All  day  Thurs- 
day there  had  been  a  warm  April  rain, 
and  yesterday  morning  it  cleared  up  warm 
and  clear,  with  hardly  a  breath  of  air  to 
stir  the  half-unfolded  leaves  which  glis- 
tened in  the  bright  sunlight.  All  the  con- 
ditions were  favorable  to  bird-music,  and 
I  felt  sure  that  a  short  walk  into  the 
country  would  not  be  unrewarded.  Most 
of  our  birds,  as  is  well  known,  sing  more 
freely  in  the  early  morning  and  evening 
twilight,  but  more  especially  in  the  morn- 
ing, when  everything  is  fresh  and  green, 
and  the  whole  face  of  nature  seems  to 


32       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

smile,  suffused  with  the  rays  of  the  rising 
sun.  On  rainy  days  the  birds  will  often 
sing  all  day  long,  and  then  their  morning 
and  vesper  hymns  receive  less  attention. 
But  the  best  time  of  all  to  hear  bird-songs 
is  after  a  storm,  when  the  clouds  have 
cleared  away  and  the  sun  shines  bright 
again.  Then  the  pent-up  feelings  of  our 
feathered  songsters  find  expression  in  the 
choicest  and  most  ecstatic  melody.  Windy 
days  are  not  so  favorable  to  the  study  of 
bird-songs,  and,  generally  speaking,  the 
birds  sing  much  more  freely  in  warm 
weather  that  in  cold. 

Yesterday  my  walk  took  me  out  Lincoln 
Street  to  the  little  strip  of  woods  west  of 
Adams  Square,  —  a  favorite  haunt  of  mine, 
and  one  of  the  best  and  most  accessible 
regions  in  this  vicinity  for  bird-music.  As 
I  had  expected,  I  found  all  the  birds  in 
full  song,  —  robins,  pigeon-woodpeckers, 
bluebirds,  song,  vesper,  field,  and  chip- 
ping sparrows.  The  vesper  and  field 
sparrows  were  unusually  abundant  and 
musical,  and  there  had  evidently  been  a 


APRIL   BIRDS.  33 

flight  of  the    latter   species  within   a  few 
days,  as   the   edge   of  the  woods  was  full 
of  them.     I  doubt  if  I  ever  heard  a  more 
magnificent  and  varied  concert  of  sparrow- 
music  than  on  this  occasion,  —  the  lively 
ditty    of    the    song-sparrow,    the     sweet, 
melodious    trill    of  the   vesper,    the   long, 
ringing  whistle  of  the   field-sparrow,  and 
even    the    sliding    jingle   of    the    chipper. 
All  contributed  their  part.     There  seemed 
nothing  more  to  be  desired,  but  a  pleasure 
unexpected  was  still  in  store  for  me.     Sud- 
denly from  the  moist  meadow  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill  there  was  wafted  up  to  me  what 
seemed  a  new  sparrow-song,   sweeter  and 
more  liquid  than  any  I  had   ever   heard. 
This  was   repeated  again   and    again,   and 
slowly  it  dawned  upon  me  that  I  had  heard 
this  beautiful  song  before.     More  than  six 
years  ago,  in  the  backwoods  of  Maine,  on 
the  shores  of  the  Rangeley  Lakes,  I  had 
become  familiar  with  the  sweet  strain  of 
the     peabody     bird,     the     white-throated 
sparrow,  "  the   nightingale  of  the  North," 
(zonotrichia  albicollis)  ;  and  now  right  here 
3 


34      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

in  Worcester,  almost  within  the  city  limits, 
I  heard  his  song  blending  with  the  music 
of  our  own  familiar  sparrows.  I  have  for- 
borne to  mention  in  these  letters  the  fox- 
colored  sparrows,  the  winter  wrens,  the 
kinglets,  the  white-crowned  sparrows,  and 
other  birds  of  the  far  North,  many  of 
whom  are  most  accomplished  songsters, 
but  whose  stay  with  us  in  the  spring, 
during  their  migrations,  is  so  brief  that 
their  music  attracts  little  notice.  But  the 
peabody  bird  has  a  claim  on  me  which  I 
may  not  and  would  not  dispute,  —  that  of 
an  old  friend  whose  melody  I  knew  and 
loved  long  before  I  took  any  special  inter- 
est in  bird-songs,  and  who  is  inseparably 
associated  in  my  mind  with  sweet-scented 
primeval  forests,  with  wild  mountain  trout- 
streams,  and  the  weird  screaming  of 
the  loon.  The  song  of  the  peabody 
bird  begins  with  a  long,  clear,  wavering 
whistle,  followed  by  two  or  three  bars, 
peabody,  peabody,  peabody,  of  almost  un- 
equalled sweetness.  John  Burroughs,  who 
had  heard  the  bird  in  the  Adirondacks, 


APRIL   BIRDS.  35 

referring  to  the  abrupt  termination  of  its 
song,  says :  "  If  it  could  give  us  the  finish- 
ing strains,  of  which  this  seems  only  the 
prelude,  it  would  stand  first  among  feath- 
ered songsters."  In  the  White  Mountains 
this  song  and  that  of  the  hermit-thrush 
are  much  admired  by  the  summer  pilgrim, 
and  they  are  even  mentioned  in  the  guide- 
books among  the  other  attractions  of  the 
region.  •  How  few  that  have  been  charmed 
with  the  music  of  these  birds  in  their 
native  wilds  are  aware  that  for  a  brief 
period  every  spring  they  pour  forth  the 
same  melody  almost  at  our  very  door- 
steps !  It  is  now  generally  admitted  that 
all  birds  sing,  more  or  less  fitfully,  during 
the  spring  migration,  and  it  has  lately 
been  one  of  my  most  cherished  dreams  to 
hear  the  hermit-thrush  (turdus  pallasii) 
here  at  home  in  my  own  woods.  I  have 
already  seen  him  this  spring  flitting 
through  the  woods  like  a  ghost,  silent 
and  sojigless.  In  a  few  days,  like  the 
white-throated  sparrow,  he  will  have 
moved  on  in  his  journey  to  the  North,  and 


36       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

several  seasons   may  be   necessary  before 
my   hopes    are    realized. 

While  listening  to  the  peabody  bird,  I 
am  greeted  by  the  humble  trill  of  the 
pine-creeping  warbler  {dendroica  pinus) 
singing  in  a  hemlock-tree  over  my  head. 
Foolish  bird !  His  is  a  pretty  song  by 
itself,  but  beside  the  delicious  sparrow 
music  with  which  I  am  regaled,  his  feeble 
twcety  weet,  weet  sounds  pitifully  weak  and 
unsatisfactory.  This  little  warbler,  how- 
ever, is  doubly  welcome,  both  for  his  own 
sake  and  for  the  sake  of  the  gorgeous 
company  of  which  he  is  the  forerunner. 
Our  warblers  are  the  daintiest,  the  most 
delicate  and  the  most  gaily  attired  of  all 
our  birds.  In  outward  show,  compared 
With  these  elegant  little  creatures,  the 
plainly-dressed  sparrows  and  thrushes  are 
homely  and  unattractive  enough.  But 
with  birds  as  with  human  beings,  the  law 
of  compensation  is  inexorable,  and  we 
find  the  American  warblers  possessed  of 
very  inferior  musical  gifts.  How  different 
in  Europe !  Enough  is  said  when  I  men- 


APRIL  BIRDS.  37 

tion  the  nightingale  as  the  most  prominent 
representative   of   the    family.     Not   only 
are  the  warblers  feeble  singers,  but  they 
are    also    most   of  them   very  difficult  to 
identify,   as   they  flit   about  in  the  dense 
foliage  of  the  tree-tops  in  their  search  for 
their  insect  food.     As  we  walk  through  the 
thick  woods,  we  are  generally  conscious 
of  a  half-suppressed,   insect-like  music   in 
the  trees  far  over  our  heads,  but  seldom 
associate    it    with    these    gaudily-dressed 
visitors    from    the    tropics.     Some    of  the 
members  of  this  family,  however,  like  the 
oven-bird  and  the  Maryland  yellow-throats, 
are  ground-warblers,  and  are  much  better 
known  than  most  of  their  brethren,  while 
the  half-domesticated  little  yellow  warbler 
is  almost  as  familiar  as  the  robin  or  the 
chipping-sparrow.     The    pine-creeping    is 
the  only  warbler  I  have  seen  this  season, 
but  by  the  tenth  of  May  probably  he  will 
be   reinforced    by  the   great    body    of  his 
congeners.       Of    the     forty     varieties     of 
warblers   assigned   by  Audubon  to  North 
America  only  a  dozen  or  more  are  ever 


38       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

seen  in  this  vicinity,  and  many  of  these 
only  twice  a  year,  in  the  migrations,  when 
on  their  way  to  or  from  British  America. 
There  are  few  greater  contrasts  in  nature 
than  that  presented  by  these  Northern 
warblers,  many  of  them  the  most  elegant 
of  their  family,  seeking  out  the  vast  unin- 
habited forests  of  the  far  North  in  which 
to  breed  and  rear  their  young. 

As  I  walk  along  the  edge  of  the  woods 
my  attention  is  attracted  by  a  very  notice- 
able tri-colored  bird,  nearly  as  large  as  a 
robin,  flitting  about  in  a  heap  of  brush. 
The  unmistakable  piedness  of  his  dress, 
and  a  sharp  cherawink  at  once  serve  to 
identify  him  as  the  chewink,  or  towee- 
bunting,  or  ground-robin  (pipilo  erytJiro- 
phthalmus).  I  had  been  expecting  him 
for  a  day  or  two,  as  he  always  makes  his 
appearance  a  little  before  May-day.  Who 
but  an  ornithologist  would  suppose  the 
bird  to  be  a  sparrow,  with  his  glossy  black 
back,  bright  chestnut  breast,  and  clear 
white  beneath,  so  totally  unlike  the  plainly 
dressed  members  of  that  family  with 


APRIL  BIRDS.  39 

which  we  are  familiar?  Yet  some  re- 
semblance in  anatomical  structure  has 
settled  the  question  in  the  scientific 
world,-  and  a  sparrow  he  shall  be.  Be- 
sides his  cherawink,  which  is  his  alarm 
note,  the  bird  has  a  rather  musical  call 
note,  tow-lice,  sometimes  ending  in  a  long 
sparrow-like  trill,  which  perhaps  suffi- 
ciently vindicates  the  ornithologists  in 
their  classification  of  him.  The  chewink 
is  usually  found,  like  the  field-sparrow,  in 
bushy  pasture-lots  or  on  the  borders  of 
the  woods,  and,  like  the  sparrow,  con- 
tinues singing  far  into  the  summer.  While 
picnicking  at  the  Lake  last  August  in  the 
pine  grove  just  above  the  Poor-Farm 
Bridge  on  the  Shrewsbury  side,  I  remember 
hearing  the  field-sparrows  and  chewinks 
singing  in  unison,  while  not  another  bird- 
note  was  to  be  heard  in  any  direction. 

On  the  tip  top  of  a  tree  near  by  I  espy 
a  cow  blackbird,  or  cow-bird  (jnolothrus 
pecoris),  emitting  with  commendable  as- 
siduity his  queer,  sibilant  cluck-see.  This 
bird  has  been  with  us  a  month,  and  should, 


4O       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

perhaps,  have  been  alluded  to  in  one  of 
my  former  letters.  The  male  is  glossy 
black,  with  the  exception  of  the  head, 
which  is  dark  brown,  and  the  female  is 
brown  all  over.  The  cow-bird,  as  his 
name  implies,  is  most  abundant  in  the 
fields  and  pastures  among  the  grazing 
herds  of  cattle.  But  the  most  remarkable 
thing  about  this  bird  is  that  it  builds  no 
nest  of  its  own,  but  deposits  its  eggs 
surreptitiously  in  other  birds'  nests.  This 
habit  it  shares  exclusively,  among  all  the 
birds  known  to  science,  with  the  European 
cuckoo,  a  bird  with  which,  however,  it  is 
no  wise  allied.  Ornithologists  have  specu- 
lated as  to  the  explanation  of  this  eccen- 
tricity exhibited  by  these  widely  different 
birds,  but  apparently  in  vain. 

Dr.  Coues  suggests  that  perhaps  some- 
time in  the  remote  past  some  female  cow- 
bird,  dilatory  about  the  building  of  her 
nest,  hit  upon  this  easy  expedient  as  a 
necessary  makeshift,  and  that  gradually 
the  obnoxious  custom  extended  to  the 
whole  tribe  of  cow-birds.  The  smaller 


APRIL  BIRDS.  41 

birds  are  generally  the  victims,  especially 
the  chipping-sparrow,  Maryland  yellow- 
throat,  and  yellow-warbler.  Generally  the 
strange  egg  is  hatched  by  the  foster 
parents,  and  the  young  cow-bird  is  tended 
with  all  the  solicitude  bestowed  on  the 
rightful  occupants  of  the  nest.  Some- 
times, however,  the  birds  thus  imposed 
upon  abandon  their  nest  altogether,  es- 
pecially if  it  contains  no  eggs  of  their  own, 
and  occasionally  they  construct  a  two- 
story  nest,  leaving  the  cow-bird's  egg  in 
the  basement.  The  thing  that  has  always 
struck  me  as  most  remarkable  about  the 
cow-birds,  though  I  have  never  seen  it 
mentioned  in  the  books,  is  the  wonderful 
instinct  that  brings  together  into  one  flock 
of  their  kindred  these  young  fledglings, 
all  reared  in  different  nests,  by  all  sorts  of 
foster-parents. 

Walking  deeper  into  the  woods  to 
gather  a  bunch  of  the  beautiful  blood-root 
flower  (sanguinaria  canadensis)  which  I 
find  in  full  bloom,  my  attention  is  arrested 
by  the  loud  hammering  of  the  downy 


42       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

woodpecker  {picus pubescens).  It  is  aston- 
ishing how  this  little  woodpecker,  scarcely 
larger  than  a  sparrow,  makes  the  woods 
reverberate.  He  is  one  of  our  few  birds 
that  seem  to  be  entirely  destitute  of  all 
vocal  expression,  and  it  is  perhaps  only 
right,  therefore,  that  Downy  should  be 
allowed  to  hammer  away  on  his  tree  as 
noisily  as  he  pleases.  The  downy  wood- 
pecker, like  the  chickadee,  stays  with  us 
all  the  year  round,  and  like  the  chickadee 
lives  on  the  larvae  in  the  bark,  which 
he  has  no  difficulty  in  procuring  at  all 
seasons. 

I  had  hoped  yesterday  to  hear  in  these 
woods  a  brown-thrush,  or  at  least  a  cat- 
bird, and  had  thought  it  just  possible  that 
some  adventurous  wood-thrush  might  have 
already  arrived  in  summer  quarters  ;  but  in 
this  I  was  destined  to  disappointment.  I 
had  heard,  however,  the  song  of  the  pea- 
body  bird  during  his  migration,  and  would 
not  have  exchanged  it  even  for  the  wood- 
thrush's  evening  hymn. 


IV. 
MAY   BIRDS. 

WORCESTER,  May  13,  1887. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  The  morn- 
ing of  May-day  was  bright  and  spring-like, 
and  should  have  been  signalized,  it  seemed 
to  me,  by  the  advent  of  a  goodly  number  of 
birds,  but  not  a  single  new  song  rewarded 
my  usual  Sunday  walk.  The  next  morn- 
ing, however,  I  saw  my  first  brown-thrush 
flitting  about  in  the  thickets  by  the  side  of 
the  boulevard  west  of  Elm  Park,  and  he 
soon  broke  forth  into  the  old  familiar 
song.  Wednesday  morning  was  celebrated 
by  the  appearance  of  the  first  orioles, 
yellow-warblers,  redstarts,  black-and-white 
creeping-warblers,  and  least  fly-catchers, 
and  on  Thursday  evening  I  heard  my 


44       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

first  wood-thrush,  which,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  orioles  and  Wilson's 
thrushes,  was  the  most  important  arrival 
of  the  week.  The  Wilsons  came  Friday, 
and  on  Saturday  and  Sunday  I  heard  my 
first  cat-bird,  warbling  vireo,  oven-bird, 
wood-pewee,  and  night-hawk. 

The  brown-thrush  (harporhynckus  ritfus) 
and  the  cat-bird  (jnimus  carolinensis)  are 
thrushes  belonging  to  the  same  genus  with 
the  mocking-bird,  and,  like  this  celebrated 
Southern  songster,  they  have  for  a  song  a 
curious  medley,  which  often  suggests  the 
notes  of  other  birds.  Ornithologists  are 
now  generally  agreed,  however,  .that  this 
is  really  a  song  of  their  own,  and  that  they 
are  in  no  wise  guilty  of  plagiarism.  There 
is  a  very  strong  family  likeness  between 
their  songs,  and  it  is  sometimes  very  diffi- 
cult to  distinguish  them  with  certainty. 
The  brown-thrush's  contralto,  however,  is 
much  fuller  and  rounder  than  the  cat- 
bird's soprano,  and  he  wants  the  cat-bird's 
feline  mew,  which  has  given  this  bird  his 
name.  The  strong,  clear  sow-ivheat  of  the 


MAY   BIRDS.  45 

brown-thrush,  from  which  he  has  received 
in  some  quarters  the  name  of  the  "  planting- 
bird,"  is  much  less  marked  in  the  song  of 
the  cat-bird.  On  the  whole,  the  thrasher 
must  be  judged  to  be  much  the  finer  singer, 
though  the  cat-bird's  song  is  much  sweeter 
than  is  generally  supposed.  The  brown- 
thrush,  the  largest  of  all  the  thrushes,  is  a 
very  conspicuous,  long-tailed  bird,  with 
bright  reddish-brown  plumage,  but  is  much 
less  neighborly  than  the  cat-bird,  generally 
preferring  the  more  retired  woods  and  pas- 
tures. This  bird  is  now  in  his  glory,  and 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  go  out  into  the 
country  without  hearing  him  on  every  side. 
In  a  little  more  than  a  month  he  will  have 
become  silent.  Of  the  song  of  this  bird 
Bradford  Torrey  writes :  "  His  song  is  a 
grand  improvisation.  Such  power  and 
range  of  voice ;  such  startling  transitions ; 
such  endless  variety;  and  withal  such 
boundless  enthusiasm  and  almost  incredible 
endurance !  " 

Nearly  allied  to  the  brown-thrush,  though 
of  a  different  genus,  are  the  wood-thrush, 


46       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

or  song-thrush  (turdus  imistelinus)  and  the 
Wilson's  thrush,  or  veery  (turdus  fi:sces- 
cens],  the  most  beautiful  singers  to  be 
found  in  this  vicinity.  The  wood-thrush 
may  always  be  heard  at  this  season  in 
the  early  morning  and  evening,  and  in 
cloudy  weather  through  the  day,  in  Paine's 
Woods,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  hermit- 
age, while  the  veery  is  to  be  heard  higher 
up  on  Millstone  Hill,  near  the  quarries. 
Both  birds  sing  in  the  thick  woods  south 
of  Hope  Cemetery,  and  I  often  hear  the 
wood-thrush  in  the  woods  west  of  Adams 
Square.  The  wood-thrush  will  continue 
singing  nearly  into  August,  but  the  veeries 
will  become  songless  by  the  first  of  July. 
The  song  of  the  wood-thrush  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  represent  in  words,  but  it  is 
hard  to  mistake  the  bell-like  purity  of  its 
voice,  which  cannot  be  confounded  with 
the  song  of  any  other  bird.  In  elaborate 
technique  and  delicious  portamento  it  sur- 
passes all  the  other  thrushes.  A  pecu- 
liarly liquid  air-o-ee  is  very  beautiful,  and 
a  silvery  jingle  is  often  interspersed,  so 


MAY   BIRDS.  47 

different  from  the  rest  of  the  song  that  it 
seems  to  the  listener  to  proceed  from  some 
other  bird.  The  wood-thrushes,  more  than 
any  other  birds  I  know  of,  exhibit  various 
degrees  of  excellence,  some  individuals 
singing  much  more  beautifully  than  others. 
The  song  of  this  bird  is,  perhaps,  more 
likely  than  that  of  any  other  to  attract  the 
notice  of  the  uninitiated,  and  is  usually  set 
down,  by  such  as  a  most  remarkable  and 
noteworthy  phenomenon,  though  the  wood- 
thrushes  are  really  among  the  most  abund- 
ant of  our  birds. 

The  song  of  the  Wilson's  thrush,  or 
veery,  is  beautiful  for  its  very  simplicity, 
and  of  all  birds'  songs  may  most  truly 
be  called  spiritual.  It  consists  of  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  words  ve-ee-ry,  ve-ee-ry,  ve-ee-ry, 
or  che-u-ry,  che-u-ry,  che-u-ry,  introduced  or 
followed  by  two  or  three  clear,  melodious 
whistles.  Two  very  remarkable  things 
about  this  song  are  its  arpeggio  quality,  as 
if  it  were  accompanied  by  some  rare  musi- 
cal instrument,  and  its  ventriloquistic  ef- 
fect. You  will  sometimes  discover  a  veery, 


48       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT    WORCESTER. 

which  you  have  been  listening  to  for  some 
time  and  have  supposed  to  be  at  a  con- 
siderable distance,  perched  on  a  tree  over 
your  very  head.  The  veery  is  the  smallest 
of  the  thrushes,  with  heavily  mottled  breast 
and  tawny  back,  whence  it  is  sometimes 
called  the  tawny  thrush.  Of  the  song  of 
the  veery  Burroughs  writes :  "  The  soft, 
mellow  flute  of  the  veery  fills  a  place  in 
the  chorus  of  the  woods  that  the  song 
of  the  vesper-sparrow  fills  in  the  chorus 
of  the  fields.  It  is  one  of  the  simplest 
strains  to  be  heard,  delighting  from  the 
pure  element  of  harmony  and  beauty  it 
contains." 

The  handsome  oriole  (icterus  Baltimore), 
to  most  of  us  the  most  conspicuous  arrival 
of  May,  has  already  begun  to  sing  from 
our  elm-trees,  and  will  soon  commence 
building  his  pendent  nest.  In  the  South  it 
is  said  that  these  birds  invariably  build  on 
the  north  and  west  side  of  the  tree,  while 
in  our  colder  climate  it  is  well  known  that 
they  generally  suspend  their  nests  from 
boughs  looking  to  the  south  or  east.  I 


MAY   BIRDS.  49 

would  suggest  to  any  of  my  readers  who 
may  care  to  make  the  experiment  that 
bright-colored  yarn  left  in  an  exposed 
place  in  the  yard  would  probably  result  in 
a  brilliant  and  variegated  hang-bird's  nest 
in  the  elm-tree  before  the  house.  Besides 
the  rich,  liquid  whistles  common  to  both 
sexes,  and  heard  at  all  hours  of  the  day, 
the  male  oriole  possesses  a  beautiful,  pro- 
tracted warble,  which  he  pours  forth  gen- 
erally in  the  early  morning.  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  things  about  the  bird  is 
its  disappearance  about  the  last  of  July 
and  its  subsequent  return  towards  the  last 
of  August,  just  previous  to  its  departure 
for  the  South,  when  its  whistles  are  again 
heard  for  a  few  days. 

Almost  the  first  song  to  be  heard  in 
the  woods,  at  all  hours  of  the  day,  is  the 
highly  accentuated  crescendo  of  the  oven- 
bird  (seiurus  atirocapillus).  The  oven-bird, 
formerly  called  the  golden-crowned  thrush, 
but  now  relegated  to  the  family  of  warblers, 
is  one  of  the  commonest  of  our  woodland 
birds.  It  derives  its  name  from  its  oven- 
4 


50       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

shaped,  over-arched  nest,  which  is  gene- 
rally so  successfully  concealed  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  considered  a  great  prize 
by  the  juvenile  collector  of  birds'  eggs. 
a  Within  a  few  years  it  has  been  discovered 
that  this  bird,  during  the  mating  season, 
sometimes  indulges  in  a  rare  bit  of  melody, 
which  combines  the  vivacity  of  the  gold- 
finch with  the  rich  warble  of  the  purple- 
finch.  This  is  the  first  season  I  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  hear  this  love-song  of 
the  oven-bird,  and,  though  I  had  been 
listening  for  it  and  knew  what  to  expect, 
it  was  hard  to  convince  myself  that  so  de- 
licious a  warble  could  proceed  from  an 
American  warbler.  The  oven-bird,  like 
the  crow  and  the  meadow-lark,  is  a  walker, 
differing  in  this  respect  from  the  great  ma- 
jority of  birds,  which  are  hoppers.  Its 
delicate,  flesh-colored  legs  mark  it  at  once 
as  a  ground  warbler,  since  the  legs  of  the 
tree-warbler  are  black  and  much  stouter 
and  coarser. 

As   the    song   of  the    oven-bird    in   the 
woods,  so  is  the  song  of  the  yellow-warbler 


MAY   BIRDS.  51 

(dendroica  czstiva)  in  the  orchards  and 
gardens,  everywhere  to  be  heard.  In  Elm 
Park  the  other  day,  I  could  easily  have 
counted  twenty-five  or  thirty  individuals. 
This  bird  is  very  conspicuous,  being  of  a 
bright,  greenish  yellow,  slightly  streaked 
with  black.  His  song,  which  for  several 
weeks  will  be  heard  constantly,  consists  of 
five  or  six  pipes,  ending  abruptly  in  a 
sharp  quaver,  the  whole  uttered  with  great 
rapidity,  but  much  less  musical  than  a 
sparrow-song. 

A  song  much  resembling  that  of  the 
yellow-warbler,  though  considerably  shorter 
and  weaker,  is  that  of  the  beautiful  little 
redstart  (setophaga  ruticilla),  another  mem- 
ber of  the  elegant  warbler  family,  which  is 
very  abundant  in  all  our  woods.  The  red- 
start is  black  above  and  white  beneath, 
with  beautiful  patches  of  bright  red  on  its 
sides  and  breast.  This  bird  was  formerly 
classed  by  ornithologists  with  the  fly- 
catchers, by  reason  of  its  habit  of  cap- 
turing its  insect  food  on  the  wing,  but 
now  it  takes  its  place  with  the  family  to 


52       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

which  its   elegance  and   brilliant  plumage 
entitle  it. 

The  warbling  vireo  (inreo  gilvus),  the 
first  of  his  family  to  arrive  from  the  South, 
is  a  singer  of  good  parts,  and  of  all  the 
birds  known  to  me  may  most  emphatically 
be  said  to  warble.  His  song  much  resem- 
bles that  of  the  purple-finch,  but  contains 
none  of  the  trills  of  the  latter,  and  is  not 
nearly  so  full  and  round.  Somebody  has 
tried  to  turn  it  into  English  by  the  words 
brigadier,  brigadier,  bridget,  which,  perhaps, 
express  very  well  the  accentuation,  the 
number  of  syllables,  and  the  pauses.  Per- 
haps the  most  interesting  thing  about  this 
bird  is  that  it  is  much  more  abundant  in 
the  city  than  in  more  retired  localities,  seem- 
ing to  prefer  the  elms  and  maples  that  line 
our  city  streets.  How  few  passers-by  feel 
grateful  to  this  little  vireo  for  the  delicious 
music  which  he  lavishes  on  them  from 
above.  In  Elm  Park  the  song  of  these 
birds  can  scarcely  be  missed.  The  vireos 
(Latin  viridis),  or  greenlets,  all  have  green- 
ish-brown backs,  with  white  beneath,  and 


MAY   BIRDS.  S3 

are  a  family  confined  exclusively  to  the 
New  World.  They  seem  to  occupy  in  or- 
nithology a  middle  ground  between  the 
finches  and  the  warblers. 

The  fly-catchers,  of  which  the  only  rep- 
resentative so  far  mentioned  in  my  letters 
is  the  phcebe-bird,  belong  to  the  great  divi- 
sion of  clamatores,  or  screamers,  and  really 
have  no  right  to  sing  at  all.  The  least  fly- 
catcher, or  chebec  (empidonax  minimus), 
may  be  said  strictly  to  follow  the  letter  of 
instructions  laid  down  for  him  by  the  or- 
nithologists. His  sharp,  emphatic  chebec 
is  far  from  melodious,  resembling  some- 
what one  of  the  commonest  utterances  of 
the  unmusical  English  sparrow. 

The  last  bird  I  shall  mention  in  this 
letter  is  the  wood-pewee  (contopus  virens), 
another  member  of  the  fly-catcher  family, 
whose  long-drawn-out  pe-ee-wee  in  sweet- 
ness and  pathos  scarcely  yields  the  palm  to 
many  of  the  oscines  or  singing-birds  proper. 
The  wood-pewee,  like  the  field-sparrow,  the 
chewink,  and  the  wood-thrush,  sings  far  into 
the  summer.  Its  nest,  which  rivals  the 


54       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

humming-bird's  in  elegance,  is  made  of 
bark  and  lichens,  and  saddled  on  to  the 
top  of  a  horizontal  bough,  so  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  distinguish  it  from  an 
excresence  of  the  tree  itself. 

I  think,  in  closing,  that  I  cannot  do 
better  than  quote  the  last  stanza  of  a 
poem  by  Trowbridge  on  this  bird,  espe- 
cially as  it  contains  the  most  beautiful  allu- 
sion to  the  song  of  the  wood-thrush  I  have 
ever  seen :  — 

For  so  I  found  my  forest  bird,  — 
The  pewee  of  the  loneliest  woods,— 
Sole  singer  in  these  solitudes, 
Which  never  robin's  whistle  stirred, 
Where  never  blue-bird's  plume  intrudes. 
Quick  darting  through  the  dewy  morn, 
The  redstart  trilled  his  twittering  horn 
And  vanished  in  thick  boughs  ;  at  even 
Like  liquid  pearls  fresh  showered  from  heaven, 
The  high  notes  of  the  lone  wood-thrush 
Fell  on  the  forest's  holy  hush ; 
But  thou  all  day  complainest  here,  — 
4  Pewee  !  pewee  !  peer ! ' 


V. 


MAY   BIRDS   (CONTINUED). 

WORCESTER,  May  18,  1887. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR, — While  walk- 
ing yesterday  in  Hope  Cemetery,  I  heard 
issuing  from  the  birch  woods  to  the  east- 
ward a  rich,  rolling  warble,  reminding  me 
somewhat  of  the  song  of  the  robin.  I  was 
at  once  persuaded  that  these  notes  could 
belong  only  to  one  bird,  the  rose-breasted 
grosbeak  {goniaphea  Indoviciana),  one  of 
the  rarest  and  most  beautiful  of  our  birds. 
Following  up  the  song  I  was  soon  able  to 
identify  the  bird  with  certainty,  as  he  was 
far  from  shy,  and  retained  his  perch  until  I 
was  almost  under  the  tree  from  which  he 
was  singing.  Whoever  has  been  fortunate 
enough  once  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 


56       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

rose-breasted  grosbeak  is  not  likely  soon 
to  forget  him.  He  is  about  the  size  of  the 
robin,  black  above  and  light  beneath,  with 
a  heavy,  rather  homely  beak,  whence  his 
name.  But  this  rather  unattractive  feature 
is  amply  counterbalanced  by  a  beautiful 
rose-blush  circular  spot  in  the  very  centre 
of  his  breast,  which  is  very  conspicuous 
and  unmistakable  against  the  white. 

A  friend  of  mine,  I  remember,  once  came 
across  one  of  these  handsome  birds,  which 
he  had  never  seen  before,  in  the  back- 
woods of  Maine,  and  using  this  beautiful 
mark  as  a  target,  sent  a  rifle-bullet  through 
its  heart.  The  bird's  chief  ornament  was 
thus  the  occasion  of  its  death.  The  female 
wants  the  rose-blush  mark  on  the  breast, 
and  is  altogether  a  plain,  inconspicuous 
bird,  with  a  brown  back  and  light  breast. 
Some  ornithologists  profess  to  see  in  the 
subdued  tints  of  the  females  of  nearly  all 
our  birds  a  wise  provision  of  nature,  which 
has  clad  in  plainer  and  less  noticeable  at- 
tire the  sex  which  is  most  concerned  in  the 
propagation  of  its  kind.  They  find  a  sim- 


MAY   BIRDS.  57 

ilarly  wise  provision  in  the  law  of  nature 
which  has  conferred  such  rich  musical  gifts 
on  the  male  birds,  which  are  almost  entirely 
denied  to  the  females.  The  rose-breasted 
grosbeak  is  closely  allied  to  the  beautiful 
cardinal  grosbeak,  —  a  more  southern  spe- 
cies, with  which  most  of  my  readers  are 
probably  familiar  as  a  cage-bird,  —  as  well 
as  to  the  blue-grosbeak  of  Louisiana.  The 
musical  attainments  of  this  bird,  as  of  the 
cardinal  grosbeak,  are  of  a  very  high  or- 
der, but  his  comparative  rarity  prevents 
his  song  being  familiar  to  most  of  us.  I 
saw  only  three  or  four  of  these  birds  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  last  season,  but  one  indi- 
vidual last  June  flew  into  a  tree  in  Elm 
Park,  directly  over  my  head,  thus  giving 
me  an  admirable  opportunity  to  study  his 
song.  It  reminds  one  both  of  the  song  of 
the  robin  and  of  the  rich  warble  of  the 
oriole,  but  to  my  mind  is  much  superior 
to  either. 

Another  bird,  no  less  striking  in  appear- 
ance than  the  grosbeak,  and  much  com- 
moner, being  in  fact  rather  abundant  in  all 


58       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

our  thick  woods,  is  the  brilliant  scarlet 
tanager  {py.'anga  rubrd).  This  bird  is  all 
the  more  conspicuous,  as  his  flaming  plu- 
mage is  generally  set  off  in  strong  relief 
against  the  dark  pines  and  hemlocks  of 
the  forest,  which  one  almost  expects  him 
to  ignite  as  he  flashes  through  them  like  a 
living  coal.  This  tanager  has  jet-black 
wings,  in  marked  contrast  to  his  brilliant 
body,  but  a  closely  allied  species,  the  sum- 
mer red-bird  (pyranga  cestiva},  which  is 
abundant  west  of  New  England,  is  red  all 
over.  The  scarlet  tanager  is  common  all 
through  the  Millstone  Hill  region,  and  I 
often  hear  there  his  wild,  half-suppressed 
chip-cheer,  sounding  as  if  uttered  beneath 
his  breath.  Besides  this  note  the  tanager 
has  also  a  beautiful  warbling  song,  so 
much  like  the  robin's  that  it  is  often  very 
difficult  to  distinguish  them.  There  is, 
however,  a  certain  indescribable  wildness 
about  the  tanager's  voice,  harmonizing 
with  the  deep,  unfrequented  woods  where 
he  lives,  that,  after  a  little  study,  makes  it 
unmistakable.  This  bird  is  a  most  accom- 


MAY  BIRDS.  59 

plished  ventriloquist,  and  one  of  the  most 
experienced  and  learned  students l  of  bird- 
songs  in  the  State  has  told  me  that  it  is 
impossible  for  him  to  trace  home  the  scar- 
let tanager  by  his  song  alone.  The  female 
is  of  a  yellowish-green  color,  and  would 
never  be  suspected  for  a  moment  of  being 
in  any  wise  related  to  her  brilliant  mate. 

That  the  scarlet  tanager  is  not  better 
known  than  he  is,  notwithstanding  his  bril- 
liant plumage,  is  perhaps  not  at  all  sur- 
prising, in  view  of  the  secluded  localities 
which  he  generally  frequents ;  but  the  red- 
eyed  vireo  (vireo  olivaceus)  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  leave  this  excuse  open,  yet  I 
surmise  that  not  one  in  ten  of  my  readers 
ever  heard  of  him.  Abundant  everywhere 
in  the  deep  woods,  where  he  is  heard  in 
company  with  the  oven-bird,  the  tanager, 
and  the  redstart,  and  along  our  city  streets, 
where  his  song  blends  with  that  of  the 
warbling  vireo,  the  purple  finch,  the  yel- 
low warbler,  the  robin,  and  the  chippee, 
this  little  vireo  sings  constantly  his  un- 

1  Mr.  E.  H.  Forbush,  of  Worcester,  Mass  —  EDS. 


60       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

assuming,  rather  monotonous  song  at  all 
hours  of  the  day,  and  far  into  the  sum- 
mer, long  after  most  of  the  birds  have 
become  silent.  It  is  the  elegant  little  nest 
of  this  bird  which  the  falling  leaves  reveal 
to  us  in  the  autumn,  suspended  from  the 
forked  branches  of  the  maple-tree.  Sam- 
uels finds  in  the  red-eyed  vireo  a  favorite 
bird.  Of  him  he  writes:  — 

"  I  feel  that  no  description  of  mine  can  begin 
to  do  justice  to  the  genial,  happy,  industrious 
disposition  of  this  one  of  our  most  common, 
and  perhaps  best  loved  birds.  From  the  time 
of  its  arrival,  about  the  first  week  in  May,  until 
its  departure,  about  the  first  week  in  October,  it 
is  seen  in  the  foliage  of  elms  and  other  shade- 
trees  in  the  midst  of  our  cities  and  villages,  in 
the  apple-trees  near  the  farm-houses,  and  in 
the  tall  oaks  and  chestnuts  in  the  deep  forests. 
Everywhere  in  the  New  England  States,  at  all 
hours  of  the  day,  from  early  dawn  until  evening 
twilight,  his  sweet,  half-plaintive,  half-meditative 
carol  is  heard.  This  consists  of  the  syllables 
'wee  cheweo  turrullet  cheweeo,  given  in  a  singu- 
larly sweet  tone.  I  know  that  I  am  not  singular 
in  my  preference  when  I  say  that,  of  all  my 
feathered  acquaintances,  this  is  the  greatest 


MAY   BIRDS.  6r 

favorite  I  have.  I  always  loved  it,  and  I  can 
never  look  upon  one  after  it  is  killed,  no  matter 
how  naturally  it  is  preserved,  without  a  sad  feel- 
ing? —  as  if  it  were  one  of  my  own  most  dear 
friends  dead  before  me." 

One  of  the  most  delightful  arrivals  of 
the  last  few  days,  and  a  favorite  bird  of 
mine,  is  the  dainty  little  Maryland  yellow- 
throat  {geothlypis  trichas).  To  my  mind, 
he  is-  the  prettiest  singer  of  all  the  war- 
blers, and  his  lively  pity  me,  pity  me,  pity 
me,  far  from  expresses  the  sentiment  sug- 
gested in  the  words  by  which  his  song 
is  usually  translated  into  English.  This 
bird  is  olive-gi'een  above,  with  a  black 
head,  and  wrhite  beneath,  with  a  beautiful 
bright  yellow  throat,  by  which  he  may 
be  easily  identified.  The  yellow-throat  is 
a  ground  warbler,  and  is  usually  found  in 
moist  meadows  and  thickets.  This  bird 
is  remarkably  abundant  in  Peat  Mead- 
ow, and  from  the  rifle  range  this  side  of 
the  meadow  a  dozen  songs  may  often 
be  heard  at  once  issuing  from  as  many 
throats. 


62       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

The  nighthawk  (chordeiles  virginianus), 
which  is  really  no  hawk  at  all,  and  the 
whippoorwill  (antrostomus  vocifcrus)  are 
two  closely  allied  species  of  birds  belong- 
ing to  the  family  of  goat-suckers  (capri- 
mulgidce).  Their  generic  name  had  its 
origin  in  an  old  superstition  in  England, 
founded  on  the  broad,  ugly  beaks,  cov- 
ered with  woolly  bristles,  which  mark  the 
birds  of  this  family.  The  nighthawk  and 
the  whippoorwill  look  almost  exactly 
alike,  both  being  brown  birds,  sprinkled 
with  ashy  gray,  as  if  they  had  fallen  into 
an  ash-barrel,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  curiously  erroneous  i'dea  should  pre- 
vail in  some  quarters  that  the  two  are  sim- 
ply different  sexes  of  the  same  bird. 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  they  are  both 
nocturnal  birds,  however,  they  present  the 
most  marked  contrasts,  both  in  their  gen- 
eral habits  and  their  notes.  The  whip- 
poorwill is  one  of  the  most  retired  of  our 
birds,  inhabiting  the  densest  forests.  I 
often  hear  him  in  the  woods  which  line 
Lake  Quinsigamond,  and  I  remember  once 


MAY   BIRDS.  63 

hearing  a  regular  chorus  of  their  weird 
utterances  at  Happy  Valley  in  Boylston. 
These  birds  are  viewed  with  much  super- 
stitious awe  in  some  parts  of  the  country, 
and  a  whippoorwill  singing  from  the 
ridge-pole  of  a  farm-house  is  considered 
a  most  ominous  event.  The  whippoor- 
will builds  no  nest,  but  deposits  its  two 
beautiful  cream-colored  eggs,  which  are 
quite  rare  and  of  considerable  value,  in  a 
depression  on  the  bare  ground.  The  night- 
hawk  is  almost  a  city  bird,  and  its  loud, 
squeaking  cry  is  one  of  the  commonest 
sounds  to  be  heard  everywhere  along  our 
city  streets  in  the  early  evening  twilight, 
as  the  bird  wheels  about  just  above  the 
roofs  of  the  buildings  in  pursuit  of  night- 
flying  insects  of  all  kinds.  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  things  about  the  night- 
hawks  is  the  way  they  have  changed  their 
breeding  habits,  in  accordance  with  the 
changed  conditions  of  the  country,  and 
birds  which  formerly  laid  their  eggs  on 
rocky  ledges  in  the  deep  woods  are  now 
found  depositing  them  on  the  flat  tin  roofs 


64       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

of  our  Main  Street  blocks,  as  a  most  con- 
venient substitute. 

The  chimney-swift  (jchaetura  pelasgid), 
generally,  but  erroneously  called  the  chim- 
ney-swallow, is  another  bird  often  to  be 
seen  in  the  early  evening,  circling  about 
far  up  in  the  sky.  His  perfectly  blunt  tail 
is  sufficient  to  distinguish  him  from  the 
family  of  swallows,  to  which  he  is  in  no 
wise  related.  These  birds  are  probably 
the  swiftest  of  the  feathered  tribe,  and  the 
distance  they  cover  in  a  single  day  must  be 
something  simply  marvellous.  It  is  calcu- 
lated that  during  the  migrations  these  birds 
travel  as  far  as  a  thousand  miles  in  a  single 
night.  The  swifts  formerly  built  in  hollow 
trunks  of  trees,  but  now  build  in  deserted 
chimney-flues,  from  which  habit  they  de- 
rive their  name.  Formerly  vast  numbers 
of  them  built  in  the  chimneys  of  the  old 
Salisbury  mansion  on  Lincoln  Square,  and 
at  all  hours  of  the  day  they  could  be  seen 
circling  about  above  the  chimneys  in  dense 
clouds.  The  chimney-swifts  have  been 
with  us  now  for  several  weeks. 


MAY   BIRDS.  65 

The  barn-swallow  (Jiirundo  horreoruni), 
perhaps  the  commonest  of  our  swallows, 
but  which  generally  arrives  from  the  South 
several  weeks  later  than  the  white-breasted 
swallow,  may  be  easily  distinguished  by 
his  reddish-brown  breast  and  his  exceed- 
ingly forked  tail.  This  swallow,  like  the 
chimney-swift,  formerly  nested  in  the  hol- 
low trunks  of  trees. 

The  eave-swallow,  or  cliff-swallow  (petrch 
chelidon  lunifrons),  is  nearly  as  common  as 
the  barn-swallow.  In  accommodating  it- 
self to  the  advance  of  civilization,  this  swal- 
low has  very  naturally  chosen  to  build  its 
plaster  nest  outside  the  barn,  under  the 
eaves,  as  most  similar  to  the  ancient  cliffs 
which  its  ancestors  had  used  for  the  same 
purpose. 

The  smallest  of  all  the  swallows  and  al- 
most the  only  one  whose  breeding  habits 
have  suffered  no  change  since  the  white 
man  settled  the  country,  is  the  little  bank- 
swallow  (cotyle  riparid),  which  is  not  very 
common  in  this  vicinity.  This  bird,  like 
the  kingfisher,  still  lays  its  eggs  in  the 
5 


66      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

middle  of  the  sand-bank,  which  it  reaches 
by  long  subterranean  passages  which  it  has 
excavated  for  itself. 

The  purple-martin  {progne  purpurea), 
the  largest  and  handsomest  of  the  swal- 
lows, for  some  inexplicable  reason  seems 
to  be  rather  uncommon  about  Worcester. 
Whether  this  is  any  wise  due  to  the  ad- 
vent of  the  English  sparrow,  with  which 
perhaps  this  bird  would  be  most  apt  to 
clash  by  reason  of  its  similar  breeding 
habits,  I  am  unable  to  say. 


VI. 

JUNE   BIRDS. 

WORCESTER,  June  9,  1887. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  Of  all  months 
in  the  year  June  is  the  month  which  all 
lovers  of  bird-music  can  least  afford  to  lose. 
Before  the  first  of  June  in  this  latitude  all 
the  birds  have  come,  and  very  few  are 
silent  before  the  first  of  July.  Since  my 
last  letter  the  most  prominent  and  best 
known  arrivals  are  the  bobolinks,  the  king- 
birds, the  indigo-birds,  the  humming-birds, 
and  the  cuckoos,  the  last  being  always  the 
tardiest  of  our  birds  to  make  their  appear- 
ance from  the  South.  As  the  bluebird  led 
the  van,  so  the  cuckoo  brings  up  the  rear 
of  the  great  feathered  army. 


68       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

The  bobolink  (dolichonyx  oryzivorus), 
whose  rare  musical  gifts  entitle  him  to  be 
first  mentioned  in  this  letter,  is  one  of  the 
most  familiar  and  best  loved  of  our  birds. 
This  bird  is  peculiar  to  North  America 
and  has  no  even  remote  kindred  in  the  Old 
World.  He  is  unique  even  among  our 
own  birds.  In  the  first  place  he  is  the 
only  one  that  has  clear  white  above  with 
black  beneath.  Then  the  bobolink's  rol- 
licking gush  of  melody  is  said  to  be  the 
only  bird-song  which  the  Southern  mock- 
ing-bird is  unable  to  mimic.  A  caged 
mocking-bird  will  at  once  become  silent 
when  he  hears  the  silvery  medley  of  the 
bobolink  coming  up  from  the  meadow 
before  the  farm-house.  Of  this  bird's  song 
Samuels  writes :  "  Almost  everybody  in 
the  North  knows  the  song  of  the  bobolink, 
and  has  laughed  in  spite  of  himself  at  the 
grotesque  singer,  as,  perched  on  a  twig 
in  the  cherry-tree  by  the  house,  or  in  the 
elm  by  the  roadside,  or  in  the  alder  by  the 
brook,  he  nodded  his  head,  quivered  his 
wings,  opened  his  mouth,  and  rattled 


JUNE   BIRDS.  69 

out  the  most  curious,  incomprehensible, 
jingling,  roundabout,  careless,  joyous,  laugh- 
able medley  that  any  bird-throat  ever 
uttered." 

All  'my  readers  are  familiar  with  Bryant's 
"  Robert  of  Lincoln,"  in  which  he  trys  to 
turn  this  song  into  English  poetry.  He  is 
hardly  so  successful,  it  seems  to  me,  as 
Wilson  Flagg,  a  practical  ornithologist,  in 
his  charming  little  poem  entitled  "  The 
O'Lincoln  Family." 

Few  birds  undergo  so  complete  a  change 
of  plumage  as  the  male  bobolink  at  the 
end  of  the  breeding  season.  Then  he  not 
only  loses  his  voice,  but  takes  on  a  dull 
brown  dress,  in  place  of  his  conspicuous 
black  and  white  attire,  and  it  would  be  dif- 
ficult indeed  to  recognize  in  him  the  gayly 
dressed  minstrel  of  a  month  before. 

Late  in  August  the  bobolinks  collect  in 
vast  flocks,  and  begin  to  move  southward 
in  their  fall  migration.  During  their  pas- 
sage through  the  Middle  States,  when  they 
become  very  fat,  they  are  slaughtered  in 
great  quantities  for  the  table,  and  are  there 


7O       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

known  as  reed-birds.  In  the  Southern 
States  they  become  rice-birds,  since  they 
make  great  havoc  in  the  rice-fields  of  these 
States,  and  again  in  the  Bahamas  they  play 
the  role  of  the  butter-bird.  The  bobolinks 
winter  in  the  West  Indies,  or  even  farther 
south.  They  summer  in  Canada,  and  in 
New  England,  and  the  other  Northern 
States,  and  every  spring  throughout  this 
whole  region  there  is  scarcely  a  meadow 
which  is  not  taken  possession  of  by  at 
least  one  pair  of  these  birds.  The  bob- 
olinks are  common  enough  everywhere 
about  Worcester,  but  I  find  them  espe- 
cially abundant  in  the  fields  and  meadows 
on  both  sides  of  Lincoln  Street  from 
Adams  Square  to  the  Poor  Farm. 

The  king-bird  (tyrannies  carolinensis], 
largest  of  the  fly-catcher  family,  is  prob- 
ably as  familiar  to  most  of  my  readers  as 
the  bobolink,  with  his  white-tipped  tail- 
feathers,  black  back,  and  white  breast.  He 
is,  perhaps,  most  noticeable  as  he  sits  on 
the  telegraph  and  telephone  wires,  darting 
forth  now  and  then  to  capture  some  un- 


JUNE   BIRDS.  /I 

wary  moth  or  beetle,  and  then  as  quickly 
regaining  his  perch.  His  song  is  a  sharp 
jingle,  not  entirely  unpleasing  to  the  ear. 
This  bird  is,  perhaps,  best  known  for  his 
unbounded  courage,  which  leads  him  to 
attack  even  the  largest  birds  of  prey,  and 
it  is  no  uncommon  sight  in  the  country  to 
see  a  little  king- bird  away  up  in  the  air  in 
hot  pursuit  of  some  hawk  or  crow.  It  is 
said  that  he  sometimes  attacks  even  the 
eagle,  and  that  the  king  of  birds  is  obliged 
to  lower  his  colors  to  his  plucky  little 
assailant. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  recent  ar- 
rivals, though  probably  known  to  but  few 
of  my  readers,  is  the  beautiful  little  indigo- 
bird  (cyanospiza  eyanea).  This  bird  be- 
longs to  the  great  family  of  finches,  and 
is  thus  related  to  the  goldfinch  and  the 
purple-finch,  with  which  its  pretty  song 
and  conspicuous  plumage  would  seem  to 
associate  it.  Its  song  consists  of  the  sylla- 
bles tehee,  tehee,  tehee,  —  tehee,  tehee,  tehee, 
-  tehee,  tehee,  tehee,  uttered  in  a  peculiar, 
lisping  manner.  Unlike  most  bird-songs, 


72      BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT    WORCESTER. 

it  begins  high  and  loud,  and  gradually 
descends,  the  last  notes  being  scarcely  au- 
dible. The  indigo-bird  is  generally  found 
in  bushy  pastures  and  clearings,  and  since, 
like  these  birds,  he  sings  far  into  the  sum- 
mer, I  am  apt  to  associate  him  in  my  mind 
with  the  field-sparrow  and  .the  chewink.  I 
often  hear  his  song  south  of  Bell  Pond  and 
on  the  south  slope  of  Chandler  Hill,  and  I 
sometimes  hear  him  in  the  fields  southwest 
of  Adams  Square. 

The  ruby-throated  humming-bird  (trochi- 
lus  colubris)  belongs  to  the  family  of  stri- 
sores,  or  squeakers,  like  the  chimney-swift 
and  the  nighthawk.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  humming-birds  are  confined  ex- 
clusively to  the  New  World.  The  ruby- 
throated  is  the  only  representative  of 
his  family  found  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  United  States,  while  in  tropical 
South  America  genera,  sub-genera,  and 
species  are  found  innumerable,  and  new 
ones  are  being  discovered  continually. 
These  winged  gems  are  too  well  known  to 
require  more  than  a  passing  notice.  They 


JUNE   BIRDS.  73 

come  late  and  leave  early,  and  while  they 
are  with  us  it  seems  as  though  their  visit 
to  our  colder  clime  could  be  only  acci- 
dental, —  as  if  they  were  continually  pining 
for  the  more  congenial  warmth  of  the 
tropics  whence  they  come. 

The  cuckoos  (coccyzi),  like  the  wood- 
peckers, belong  in  ornithology  to  the  order 
of  scansoreSy  or  climbers,  having  two  pairs 
of  toes  opposite  each  other,  instead  of 
three  on  one  side  and  one  on  the  other. 
The  family  is  represented  in  North  Amer- 
ica by  two  species,  the  black-billed  and 
the  yellow-billed.  The  former  is  rather 
the  more  northern  of  the  two,  and  is,  there- 
fore, more  abundant  about  Worcester. 
They  are  both  large  birds,  about  the  size 
of  the  brown-thrush,  though  of  rather 
slenderer  and  more  graceful  build,  and 
are  light-chestnut  above,  and  white  be- 
neath. The  American,  unlike  the  Euro-  > 
pean  cuckoo,  builds  a  nest  of  its  own,  and 
rears  its  own  offspring.  Its  nest  is  a  very 
slight  affair,  however,  and  some  ornitholo- 
gists attribute  this  fact  to  its  near  kinship 


74      BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

to  the  European  cuckoo.  The  notes  of 
both  our  cuckoos  are  very  similar,  consist- 
ing of  the  syllables  kow,  kow,  kow,  or  km, 
km,  km,  km,  reminding  one  very  little  of 
the  plain  cuckoo,  cuckoo,  of  the  European 
bird.  Burroughs,  when  in  England,  found 
little  satisfaction  in  the  cuckoo's  note, 
which  seemed  to  him  a  gross  plagiarism 
on  the  cuckoo-clock.  The  cuckoo's  note 
has  in  a  remarkable  degree  the  quality 
of  remoteness  and  introvertedness,  and 
Wordsworth's  well-known  lines  apply 
equally  well  to  our  own  bird :  — 

While  I  am  lying  on  the  grass 

Thy  twofold  shout  I  hear, 
From  hill  to  hill  it  seems  to  pass, 

At  once  far  off,  and  near. 

The  same  whom  in  my  school-boy  days 

I  listened  to;  the  cry 
Which  made  me  look  a  thousand  ways 

In  bush,  and  tree,  and  sky. 

To  seek  thee  did  I  often  rove 
Through  woods  and  on  the  green ; 

And  thou  wert  still  a  hope,  a  love ; 
Still  longed  for,  neve'r  seen ! 


JUNE   BIRDS.  75 

To  the  farmer  the  call  of  the  cuckoo 
bodes  rain,  whence  he  is  in  some  quarters 
called  the  rain-crow. 

There  are  several  of  our  less  known 
warblers  which  deserve  at  least  a  passing 
notice  in  these  papers.  The  black  and 
white  creeping-warbler  (mniotilta  varia)  is 
rather  common  in  most  of  our  thick  woods, 
where  I  often  hear  it  in  company  with  the 
redstart.  Its  song  is  very  fine  and  insect- 
like,  more  so,  perhaps,  than  that  of  any 
other  bird,  consisting  of  a  lisping  ren- 
dition of  the  syllables  wheechee,  wheechee, 
wheechee. 

The  black-throated  green  warbler  (den- 
droeca  virens)  is  said  generally  to  be  found 
in  pine  and  hemlock  groves,  though  I  am 
obliged  to  confess  I  am  as  yet  unfamiliar 
with  its  song.  Burroughs  and  Torrey, 
however,  consider  it  the  best  of  all  the 
warbler-songs.  The  latter  has  turned  it 
into  English  by  the  words,  Sleep,  sleep, 
pretty  one,  sleep. 

Another  warbler  with  whose  song  I  am 
unfamiliar  is  the  elegant  blue  yellow-back 


76       BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

(parula  americana),  which  is  said  to  be 
common  in  hardwood  groves.  I  am  sure 
it  would  amply  repay  any  of  my  readers 
to  visit  the  Natural  History  rooms  and 
inspect  the  beautifully  mounted  specimen 
of  this  bird,  which  the  society  is  fortunate 
enough  to  possess.  The  blue  yellow-back 
is  the  smallest,  the  daintiest,  and  most  ele- 
gant of  our  warblers. 

The  black-poll  warbler  (dendroeca  striatd) 
is  chiefly  interesting  as  being,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  cuckoo,  the  last  of  our  birds 
to  usher  in  the  spring.  The  insect-like/^, 
jee.jee  of  this  warbler  is  heard  everywhere 
during  the  last  week  of  May,  and  the  tardi- 
ness of  his  arrival  would  seem  to  justify  us 
in  supposing  that  he  had  come  to  stay;  but 
he  is  only  a  migrant,  and  in  a  week  or  two 
he  has  left  us  as  suddenly  as  he  came,  and 
taken  wing  for  the  far  northern  forests, 
where  he  breeds.  Audubon,  who  found 
this  bird  breeding  in  the  wilds  of  Labra- 
dor, congratulates  himself  on  being  the 
first  white  man  who  ever  saw  its  nest  and 
eggs. 


JUNE   BIRDS.  77 

I  must  not  omit  to  mention,  also,  the 
beautiful  and  familiar  cedar-bird,  or  cherry- 
bird  (ampelis  cedrorum),  unmusical  though 
lie  be.  This  bird,  like  that  rare  winter 
visitant,  the  Bohemian  chatterer,  belongs 
to  the  family  of  waxwings,  so  called  from 
a  horny  appendage,  like  sealing-wax,  on 
the  tips  of  their  wings.  The  cedar-bird  is 
very  uncertain  in  its  movements  and  migra- 
tions, which  are  apparently  independent  of 
the  weather,  and  flocks  of  them  are  often 
seen  in  mid-winter  along  the  city  streets, 
feeding  on  the  buds  of  the  cedar-tree. 

The  last  bird  which  I  shall  mention  in 
these  papers  is  the  little  spotted  sandpiper 
(tringoides  macularius).  He  is  the  only 
representative  of  a  large  family  that  stays 
with  us  to  breed,  and  is  found  on  the 
shores  of  every  body  of  water  in  New 
England.  He  makes  his  appearance  as 
early  as  the  first  week  in  April,  or  as  soon 
as  the  ice  breaks  up  in  our  rivers  and 
ponds,  and.  his  p  ecu  liar  peet-  weet,  peet-weet, 
which  is  heard  all  through  the  season,  is 
easily  recognized. 


78       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

I  cannot  forbear  in  closing  to  quote  the 
first  and  last  stanzas  of  a  delightful  little 
poem  on  this  bird  by  Celia  Thaxter. 

Across  the  narrow  beach  we  flit, 

One  little  sandpiper  and  I  ; 
And  fast  I  gather,  bit  by  bit, 

The  scattered  driftwood  bleached  and  dry. 
The  wild  waves  reach  their  hands  for  it, 

The  wild  wind  raves,  the  tide  runs  high, 
As  up  and  down  the  beach  we  flit,  — 

One  little  sandpiper  and  I. 

Comrade,  where  wilt  thou  be  to-night 

When  the  loosed  storm  breaks  furiously? 
My  driftwood  fire  will  burn  so  bright ! 

To  what  warm  shelter  canst  thou  fly  ? 
I  do  not  fear  for  thee,  though  wroth 

The  tempest  rushes  through  the  sky  ; 
For  are  we  not  God's  children  both, 

Thou  little  sandpiper  and  I  ? 


VII. 

MIDSUMMER  SONGSTERS. 

WORCESTER,  July  28th,  1887. 

DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  With  most  birds, 
their  singing  is  confined  to  the  seasons  of 
mating  and  of  nesting.  After  the  young 
birds  have  left  the  nest,  the  parents  gen- 
erally become  silent.  Who  ever  heard  the 
gushing,  rollicking  song  of  the  bobolink  in 
the  month  of  August,  or  even  after  the 
middle  of  July?  Such  an  event  would  be 
indeed  a  strange  and  unaccountable  phe- 
nomenon, for  the  bobolinks  are  always 
very  careful  to  have  their  young  fully 
fledged  and  out  of  the  nest  before  the 
mower  comes  to  cut  the  grass  in  the 
meadows  and  threaten  the  destruction  of 
their  dwellings,  together  with  their  precious 


80       BIRD-SONGS  ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

contents.  Some  birds,  however,  rear  sev- 
eral broods  in  the  season,  and  may  some- 
times be  found  nesting  even  as  late  as  the 
last  of  July,  while  all  birds  whose  first 
efforts  at  raising  their  quota  of  young  have 
for  any  reason  miscarried  are  pretty  sure 
to  make  a  second  attempt,  which  often 
carries  them  far  into  the  summer.  Thus 
the  wood-thrush,  when  the  first  nest  has 
been  robbed,  a  thing  which  often  happens 
by  reason  of  its  exposed  position,  will 
sometimes  continue  singing  almost  to  the 
middle  of  August. 

Until  recently  the  robins  have  been  in 
full  song,  and  within  a  few  days  I  have 
heard  sing  fitfully  and  as  if  by  accident, 
the  yellow-warbler,  the  bluebird,  the  war- 
bling-vireo,  the  cat-bird,  the  pigeon-wood- 
pecker, and  the  golden-robins.  The  song 
of  the  yellow-warbler  interested  me  par- 
ticularly. I  had  not  heard  him  for  a 
month  and  was  therefore  much  surprised 
yesterday  to  hear  his  song  issuing  from 
the  moist  thickets  of  Peat  Meadow.  All 
the  notes  were  there,  but  the  song  was 


MIDSUMMER   SONGSTERS.  8 1 

delivered  in  a  listless  and  perfunctory 
manner,  as  if  the  bird  had  little  heart  for 
singing.  It  seemed  to  be  a  reminiscence 
of  the  gay  springtime,  expressing  no 
present  joy  but  rather  a  regret  for  the 
joyful  days  that  were  gone.  Until  within 
a  day  or  two  I  have  not  heard  for  over  a 
month  the  rich  warble  of  the  golden- 
robin.  It  is  now  their  second  springtime. 
It  is  -a  well-known  fact,  though  very 
difficult  to  explain,  that  these  birds  after 
remaining  silent  for  nearly  a  month,  again 
become  vocal  in  August  just  before  their 
departure  for  the  South.  The  loud  squeak- 
ing and  booming  of  the  nighthawk  is  still 
one  of  the  commonest  evening  sounds 
along  our  city  streets,  and  the  weird  cry  of 
the  whippoorwill  is  still  common  enough 
along  the  shores  of  Lake  Quinsigamond, 
but  these  goat-suckers  are  not  to  be  classed 
with  singing-birds  at  all. 

The  most  persistent  and    reliable    mid- 
summer songsters,  however,  are  the  song, 
vesper,    and    field  sparrows,  the   chewink, 
the  indigo-bird,  the  wood-pewee,  and  the 
6 


82       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

red-eyed  vireo.  These  are  the  midsum- 
mer and  late  summer  minstrels  par  excel- 
lence. Their  singing  seems  to  be  entirely 
independent  of  their  breeding  habits.  In 
the  extracts  from  his  journal  entitled 
"  Summer,"  edited  by  Mr.  H.  G.  O.  Blake, 
Thoreau  writes :  "  Some  birds  are  poets 
and  sing  all  summer.  They  are  the  true 
singers.  Any  man  can  write  verses  in  the 
love  season.  We  are  most  interested  in 
those  birds  that  sing  for  the  love  of  the 
music  and  not  of  their  mates;  who  medi- 
tate their  strains  and  amuse  themselves 
with  singing;  the  birds  whose  strains  are 
of  deeper  sentiment." 

The  song-sparrow  deserves  especial 
praise  for  singing  so  late  in  the  season, 
and  there  is  probably  no  other  of  our 
birds  that  from  first  to  last  contributes  so 
much  to  the  general  chorus.  Appearing 
sometimes  as  early  as  the  first  week  in 
March,  he  begins  singing  from  the  first 
moment  of  his  arrival,  and  continues  to 
regale  us  with  his  lively  and  spirited 
melody,  sometimes  until  the  first  of  Sep- 


MIDSUMMER   SONGSTERS.  83 

tember.  At  both  extremities  of  the  sea- 
son his  voice  is  often  the  only  one  to  be 
heard  from  far  or  near.  He  sings,  too,  all 
day  long,  except  perhaps  at  high  noon, 
and  as  if  conscious  that  such  persistent 
singing,  if  unvaried,  might  in  time  become 
tiresome  to  the  listener,  the  song-sparrow 
gives  us  some  six  or  seven  variations, 
which  sometimes  follow  one  another  in 
rapid  succession.  One  of  these  variations, 
consisting  of  a  long  and  peculiarly  liquid 
whistle,  immediately  after  the  introductory 
note,  and  before  the  concluding  trills,  is 
especially  beautiful.  Thoreau,  in  the  book 
above  quoted,  writes :  "  R.  W.  E.  [Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson]  imitates  the  wood-thrush 
by  '  He  willy  willy  —  ha  willy  willy  —  O 
willy,  O.'  The  song-sparrow  is  said  to  be 
imitated  in  New  Bedford  thus:  '  Maids, 
maids,  maids,  hang  on  your  tea-kettle — ettle 
ettle  —  ettle  —  ettle'  " 

The  vesper-sparrow,  or  bay-winged 
bunting,  also  comes  early,  and  we  should 
indeed  be  grateful  to  him  for  continuing 
his  sweet,  melodious  trills  through  into 


84      BIRD-SONGS    ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

.the  heat  of  the  dog-days.  I  still  hear  him 
singing  as  persistently  as  ever,  whenever 
my  walk  takes  me  to  the  high,  open 
pastures  beyond  Sunnyside. 

Thoreau  writes  in  his  journal,  under 
date  of  June  23,  1856:  "  To  New  Bedford 

with  R .  Baywings  sang  morning  and 

evening  about  R 's  house,  often  resting 

on  a  beanpole,  and  dropping  down  and 
running  and  singing  on  the  bare  ground 
amid  the  potatoes  their  note  somewhat 
like  Come  here,  here  —  there,  there  (then 
three  rapid  notes)  —  quick,  quick,  quick, 
or  I'm  gone" 

The  long,  vibrating  whistle  of  the  field- 
sparrow,  or  bush-sparrow,  as  John  Bur- 
roughs calls  him,  is  one  of  the  character- 
istic sounds  of  midsummer  on  the  bushy 
hillside.  Thoreau,  writing  of  summer, 
says :  "  Maybe  the  huckleberry-bird  best 
expresses  the  season,  or  the  red-eye. 
What  subtile  differences  between  one  sea- 
son and  another  !  "  I  was  long  in  doubt 
what  bird  Thoreau  meant  by  the  huckle- 
berry-bird, but  in  view  of  this  remark,  and 


MIDSUMMER   SONGSTERS.  85 

since  he  nowhere  mentions  the  field-spar- 
row by  name,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  this  bird  was  meant.  The  local  and 
popular  names  of  birds,  as  of  flowers,  are 
infinite.  This  bird  may  be  heard  any  day 
along  the  hillside  east  of  Peat  Meadow. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  little  red-eyed 
vireo  keeps  on  singing  his  simple,  rather 
monotonous  ditty  all  through  the  summer, 
and  almost  up  to  the  time  of  his  depart- 
ure for  the  South,  about  the  second  week 
in  September.  His  song,  which  he  carols 
all  day  long,  as  he  flits  about  among  the 
leaves  of  the  maple  in  pursuit  of  his  insect 
food,  seems  to  be  treated  by  him  as  a 
part  of  the  business  of  the  day,  and  is  in 
no  wise  expressive  of  undue  emotion  and 
exuberance  of  spirits,  as  is  the  case  with 
the  singing  of  most  birds. 

That  curious  harlequin,  in  his  pied  dress, 
the  chewink  or  ground-robin,  or  towhee 
bunting,  is  another  bird  I  always  hear 
almost  till  the  close  of  summer,  usually 
in  company  with  the  field-sparrow.  Even 
after  he  has  abandoned  his  sparrow-like 


86       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

song,  he  still  gives  us  his  hardly  less 
musical  call-note  toivkee,  until  he  leaves 
for  the  South  in  October. 

The  sweet,  pathetic  pe-ee-wee  of  the 
wood-pewee  is  now  heard  not  only  in  the 
deep  woods,  which  are  the  bird's  proper 
habitation,  but  on  the  city  lawns  as  well ; 
for  at  this  season  the  pewees,  like  many 
other  forest  birds,  leave  their  woodland 
retreats  after  the  young  have  left  the  nest, 
and  seek  their  food  in  the  gardens  of  our 
cities,  where  they  find  insects  in  great 
abundance.  Speaking  of  the  peculiar  pa- 
thos of  the  pewee's  voice,  I  remember  one 
ornithologist  who  derides  the  sentimen- 
tality of  the  poet  who  conceived  this  bird 
to  be  weighed  down  with  sorrow  and  woe. 
Notwithstanding  the  peculiar  structure  of 
its  windpipe,  the  ornithologist  assures  us 
that  the  pewee  manages  to  enjoy  life  about 
as  well  as  the  majority  of  birds.  All  birds, 
however,  considering  the  manifold  perils 
to  which  they  are  exposed,  seem  to  be 
remarkably  cheerful  and  light-hearted. 

It  is  doubtful  if  many  of  our  song-birds 


MIDSUMMER    SONGSTERS.  8/ 

die  a  natural  death.  What  with  hawks 
and  snakes  and  the  perils  inseparably 
connected  with  their  migrations,  not  to 
speak  of  the  small  boy  with  his  murderous 
gun,  they  pass  indeed  a  precarious  and 
uncertain  existence.  Then,  as  we  all 
know,  the  domestic  cat  is  responsible  for 
only  too  large  a  share  of  bird  fatalities. 
The  eggs  and  helpless  young,  moreover, 
are  •  peculiarly  liable  to  disaster.  The 
common  red  squirrel  is  a  miscreant  who 
is  especially  fond  of  birds'  eggs,  and  the 
crow,  blue-jay,  and  many  other  species  of 
birds  are  addicted  to  the  disreputable  habit 
of  preying  on  the  eggs  of  their  smaller 
neighbors.  We  must  remember,  however, 
that  it  is  thus  that  nature  prevents  the 
undue  increase  of  all  species  of  animals, 
and  thus  works  out  her  own  Malthusian 
theory.  It  is  only  wlren  the  balance  is 
disturbed  by  the  introduction  of  new  and 
adventitious  causes  of  destruction  .  that 
we  need  fear  the  extermination  of  any 
species  of  animals.  Must  not  the  fatalities 
among  our  birds  caused  by  the  small  boy 


88       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

and  the  purveyor  of  birds'  feathers  for  hat 
decorations  be  classed  in  this  category? 

To  revert,  however,  from  this  digres- 
sion to  summer  bird-songs,  the  most 
characteristic  and  typical  summer  songster 
is  the  indigo-bird.  This  beautiful  little 
bird,  whose  deep  blue  plumage  is  much 
darker  than  that  of  the  bluebird,  comes  so 
late  in  the  season  that  it  is  only  right  that 
he  should  continue  to  sing  for  us  through 
the  summer. 

He  sings  all  through  the  livelong  sum- 
mer day,  and  his  song,  consisting  of  a 
lisping  rendition  of  the  syllable  tehee, 
tehee,  tehee-tehee,  tehee,  tehee-tehee,  tehee, 
tehee,  is  as  much  of  a  midsummer  sound 
as  the  chirping  of  a  cricket.  I  heard  him 
yesterday  singing  loud  and  clear  at  the 
end  of  the  woods,  just  north  of  Sunnyside, 
his  being  the  only  bird-song  within  hear- 
ing. I  am  also  pretty  sure  to  hear  him 
in  the  fields  west  of  Adams  Square.  I 
will  quote  in  conclusion  the  following  ex- 
tract from  Thoreau's  journal :  "  June  9, 
1857,  P.  M.  To  Violet,  Sorrel,  and  Calla 


MIDSUMMER   SONGSTERS.  89 

Swamp.  In  the  sprout  land,  beyond  the 
red  huckleberry,  an  indigo-bird,  which 
chirps  about  me  as  if  it  had  a  nest  there. 
This  is  a  splendid  and  marked  bird,  high 
colored  as  is  the  tanager,  looking  strange 
in  this  latitude.  Glowing  indigo.  Wilson 
says  it  sings,  not  like  most  other  birds,  in 
the  morning  and  evening  chiefly,  but  also 
in  the  middle  of  the  day.  In  this  I  no- 
tice it  is  like  the  tanager,  the  other  fiery- 
plumaged  bird.  They  seem  to  love  the 
heat.  It  probably  had  its  nest  in  one  of 
these  bushes." 


VIII. 

BIRD   NOMENCLATURE.  — SOME   ENG- 
LISH  AND    AMERICAN    BIRDS. 

WORCESTER,  Aug.  8,  1887. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  When  our 
forefathers  settled  this  country  they  named 
most  of  the  birds  they  found  here  after 
those  that  had  been  familiar  to  them  in 
Old  England.  Thus  the  common  migra- 
tory thrush  (tnrdus  migratorius)  they 
named  the  robin,  because  that  bird's  red- 
dish-brown breast  and  familiar,  sociable 
ways  reminded  them  of  the  English  robin 
redbreast,  that  much  loved  bird  which  the 
pathetic  old  ballad  of  "  The  Babes  in  the 
Woods  "  had  immortalized.  The  famous 
European  skylark,  which  has  inspired  so 


ENGLISH   AND   AMERICAN   BIRDS.       91 

many  poets  in  the  old  world,  lent  its  name 
to  the  bird  which  the  early  colonists  found 
inhabiting  the  meadows  along  the  streams 
of  the  New  World.  Our  crow-blackbird, 
redwinged  blackbird,  and  cow-blackbird, 
derived  their  names  from  the  English 
thrush  which  bears  that  name.  In  like 
manner  our  American  chimney-swift  was 
named  from  the  English  chimney-swallow, 
and  our  purple-martin  from  the  English 
window-martin,  or  cliff-swallow.  Our  sum- 
mer yellowbird  or  thistle-bird,  was  called 
the  goldfinch,  and  our  purple-finch  the  lin- 
net. Our  ruffed  grouse  was  called  the  par- 
tridge, and  our  American  partridge  the 
quail.  So  after  the  English  redstart,  a 
bird  nearly  allied  to  the  robin  redbreast, 
one  of  our  wood-warblers,  a  family  pecu- 
liar to  the  New  World,  was  named.  The 
cuckoos,  wrens,  and  nuthatches  are  other 
familiar  instances. 

From  an  ornithological  point  of  view, 
however,  these  popular  names  were  some- 
times glaring  misnomers,  and,  indeed,  were 
often  based  upon  very  superficial  resem- 


92       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

blances.  Thus  our  American  robin's  near- 
est congener  in  Europe  is  the  blackbird. 
Both  are  thrushes ;  they  are  of  about  the 
same  size,  and,  according  to  the  Duke  of 
Argyle,  their  songs  bear  a  very  strong  re- 
semblance to  each  other.  The  English 
robin  is  about  half  the  size  of  ours,  and  is 
no  thrush  at  all,  but  belongs,  like  the 
nightingale,  to  the  family  of  European  war- 
blers. I  have  observed  that  domestics 
newly  arrived  from  the  Old  World  always 
call  our  robins  thrushes,  as  indeed  they 
should.  The  nearest  relative  of  the  Eng- 
lish robin  in  this  country  is  the  bluebird. 
They  both  have  reddish-brown  breasts,  are 
of  about  the  same  size,  and  in  general  re- 
semble one  another  very  closely.  Yet  I 
was  much  surprised  to  see  in  an  English 
encyclopaedia  that  the  American  bluebird 
was  known  as  the  English  robin.  The 
error  of  the  learned  author  of  the  article 
was  in  a  measure  excused  by  the  error  of 
our  ancestors. 

In  ornithology  our  meadow-lark  is  not  a 
lark,  but  an  American   starling.     Though 


ENGLISH   AND   AMERICAN  BIRDS.       93 

he  is  a  large,  handsome  bird,  with  a  con- 
spicuous yellow  breast,  his  song  consists 
merely  of  a  long,  wavering  whistle,  which 
is  always  uttered  from  the  ground,  and 
which  bears  not  the  slightest  resemblance 
to  the  copious  notes  of  the  skylark,  which 
he  showers  down  upon  us  from  far  up  in 
the  sky.  The  only  true  lark  to  be  found 
in  these  parts  is  the  shore-lark,  which  with 
us  fs  only  a  winter  bird  of  passage,  and 
which,  even  in  its  summer  haunts  in  the 
far  North,  is  said  to  be  possessed  of  rather 
inferior  musical  gifts.  Recently,  however, 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  Yellowstone  Park,  a 
new  lark,  called  Sprague's  lark,  has  been 
discovered,  whose  song  is  said  to  be 
unequalled  by  his  celebrated  European 
cousin.  I  saw  the  other  day,  in  a  New 
York  newspaper,  that  the  skylark  has  re- 
cently been  introduced  into  some  parts  of 
New  York  State  with  complete  success. 
What  a  substitute  this  bird  would  have 
been  for  the  English  sparrow! 

Our  beautiful  purple-martin  has  no  near 
congener  in  the   European    avifauna,  our 


94      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

common  cliff  or  eave  swallow  correspond- 
ing to  the  English  window-martin.  They 
both  build  their  hemispherical  plaster  nests 
on  the  sides  of  steep  cliffs,  or  under  the 
eaves  of  houses  and  barns.  Shakspeare's 
well-known  lines  in  Macbeth  apply  equally 
well  to  our  own  bird :  — 

This  guest  of  summer, 
The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve, 
By  his  loved  mansionry,  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here.     No  jutty,  frieze, 
Buttress,  nor  coigne  of  van  Inge,  but  this  bird 
Hath  made  his  pendent  bed,  and  procreant  cradle ; 
Where  they  most   breed   and   haunt,   I  have   ob- 
served, 
The  air  is  delicate. 

It  is  an  interesting  and  curious  fact 
that  while  in  this  country  the  swift 
builds  in  chimneys,  in  England  he  builds 
in  barns,  while  the  English  swallow,  cor- 
responding to  our  barn-swallow,  builds 
in  chimneys.  This  accounts  for  our  swift 
being  commonly  called  the  chimney- 
swallow. 

Many  of  our  birds,  however,  especially 
those  which  had  no  European  representa- 


ENGLISH   AND   AMERICAN  BIRDS.        95 

tive,  were  named  from  the  real  or  fancied 
resemblance  of  their  songs  or  call-notes  to 
certain  articulate  words  or  sounds.  On 
this  principle  of  onomatopoeia  the  che- 
wink,  the  wood-pewee,  the  phoebe  bird, 
the  chicadee,  the  bobolink,  and  the  veery 
received  their  names.  The  last-mentioned 
bird  was  undoubtedly  a  veery  long  before 
he  was  a  Wilson's  thrush.  Perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  of  our  birds  in  this  re- 
spect, however,  is  the  whippoorwill,  whose 
weird  nocturnal  cry  is  as  easily  turned  into 
English  as  the  chirping  of  the  katydid. 
The  Indians,  however,  translated  it  into 
"  wish-ton-wish,"  which,  perhaps,  would  be 
the  better  version ;  and  Cooper,  in  his 
novel  by  that  name,  tells  us  that  this  bird 
is  in  some  quarters  vulgarly  called  "  the 
whippoorwill." 

It  has  probably  been  observed  by  most 
of  my  readers  that  the  nearer  you  are 
to  the  bird,  the  more  difficult  it  is 
to  distinguish  the  words  of  the  English 
translation. 

On  the  comparative  merits  of  the  Eng- 


96      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

lish  and  American    song-birds,  John  Bur- 
roughs, in  his  "  Fresh  Fields,"  writes :  - 

"  I  could  well  understand,  after  being  in  Eng- 
land a  few  days,  why,  to  English  travellers,  our 
songsters  seem  inferior  to  their  own.  They  are 
much  less  loud  and  vociferous ;  less  abundant 
and  familiar ;  one  needs  to  woo  them  more ; 
they  are  less  recently  out  of  the  wilderness ; 
their  songs  have  the  delicacy  and  wildness  of 
most  woodsy  farms,  and  are  as  plaintive  as  the 
whistle  of  the  wind.  They  are  not  so  happy  a 
race  as  the  English  songsters,  as  if  life  had  more 
trials  for  them,  as  doubtless  it  has,  in  their  en- 
forced migrations  and  in  the  severer  climate  with 
which  they  have  to  contend.  On  the  whole,  I 
may  add  that  I  did  not  anywhere  in  England 
hear  so  fine  a  burst  of  bird-song  as  I  have  heard 
at  home,  and  I  listened  long  for  it  and  atten- 
tively. Not  so  fine  in  quality,  though  perhaps 
greater  in  quantity." 

Among  English  travellers  Burroughs  re- 
fers particularly  to  the  Duke  of  Argyle, 
who  contributed  to  Frazer's  Magazine  for 
1880  two  very  interesting  papers  entitled 
"Some  First  Impressions  of  America." 

These  papers  dealt  chiefly  with  nature 


ENGLISH  AND  AMERICAN  BIRDS.       97 

in  this  country,  and  the  Duke,  who  is  a 
most  accomplished  ornithologist,  did  not 
forget  the  birds.  He  writes  that,  though 
he  was  in  the  woods  and  fields  of  Canada 
and  the  States  in  the  richest  moment  of 
spring,  he  heard  little  of  that  burst  of  song 
with  which  he  had  been  familiar  in  Eng- 
land. I  was  surprised,  however,  in  read- 
ing these  articles  to  find  that  some  of  our 
finest  singers  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
heard  at  all.  He  makes  no  mention  what- 
ever of  the  wood-thrush,  or  the  veery,  or 
the  bobolink,  or  the  rose-breasted  gros- 
beak, or  of  many  others  of  our  best 
singers.  He  does  admit  that  the  Ameri- 
can robin,  though,  as  he  maintains,  inferior 
to  the  English  blackbird,  is  much  more  fa- 
miliar, and  therefore  much  oftener  heard. 
His  letters,  on  the  whole,  are  delightful, 
and  I  am  sure  will  amply  repay  any  one 
who  takes  the  trouble  to  read  them.  The 
humming-bird,  which  he  had  searched  for 
long  in  vain,  he  at  last  discovers  during  a 
trip  to  Niagara  Falls,  and  his  delight  is 
infinite.  He  thinks  the  bird  sets  off  the 
7 


98       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

falls  perfectly.  How  apt  is  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  humming-bird,  "  a  vibratory 
haze  "  !  The  sight  of  a  goldfinch  fills  him 
with  enthusiasm,  and  he  exclaims,  "  An 
American  goldfinch,  indeed  !  " 

According  to  Gilbert  White's  charming 
book,  "  On  the  Natural  History  of  Sel- 
borne,"  which  is  as  much  of  an  English 
classic  as  Izaak  Walton's  "  Complete  An- 
gler," the  linnets  and  sparrows  of  England 
are  rather  weak  singers.  How  different 
here  !  The  purple-finch,  goldfinch,  indigo- 
bird,  rose-breasted  grosbeak,  the  peabody 
bird,  the  song,  vesper,  and  field  sparrows, 
all  of  them  superior  songsters,  are  included 
in  this  family.  As  for  the  thrushes,  there 
are  in  England  only  three  species,  the  mis- 
sal-thrush, or  throstle,  the  song-thrush,  or 
mavis,  and  the  blackbird.  Our  robin's 
song,  according  to  Burroughs,  is  scarcely 
inferior  to  any  of  them,  while  they  have  in 
England  no  birds  whatever  answering  to 
our  mocking-bird,  brown-thrush,  catbird, 
wood-thrush,  and  veery. 

Our  vireos  are  a  family  peculiar  to  the 


ENGLISH   AND   AMERICAN   BIRDS.       99 

New  World,  and  have  no  representatives 
whatever  in  Europe.  Neither  have  the  ori- 
oles or  the  tanagers,  or  the  bobolinks,  all  of 
them  among  the  most  musical  of  our  birds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  European  war- 
blers, to  which  family  the  nightingale  be- 
longs, are  not  represented  at  all  in  the  New 
World.  The  American  wrarblers,  which, 
properly  speaking,  are  not  warblers  at  all, 
are  weak  singers,  and  have  nothing  in 
common  with  the  celebrated  Old  World 
warblers.  According  to  Burroughs,  how- 
ever, in  England  at  least,  the  nightingale 
is  very  rare ;  and  in  his  chapter  in  "  Fresh 
Fields  "  entitled  "  A  Search  for  a  Nightin- 
gale "  he  gives  us  an  amusing  account  of 
his  desperate  though  fruitless  endeavor  to 
find  that  bird. 

The  skylark,  too,  at  least  in  the  settled 
parts  of  this  country,  has  no  proper  repre- 
sentative, so  that  the  two  most  famous  Old 
World  songsters  are  denied  to  the  New 
World.  Thus  has  nature  to  the  Eastern 
and  Western  Continent  dealt  out  her  gifts 
with  an  even  and  impartial  hand. 


IX. 

THE   BIRDS   OF   PRINCETON. 

PRINCETON,  June  20,  1889. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  Having  passed 
the  last  few  days  in  the  Worcester  County 
hill  town  of  Princeton,  I  have  been  tempted 
to  send  you  this  letter  on  the  birds  I  have 
heard  sing  here  at  this  season  of  the  year, 
when  nearly  all  our  wild  birds  sing  at  their 
best.  I  am  particularly  prompted  to  do 
this,  as  it  will  give  me  an  opportunity  to 
inform  local  ornithologists  that  the  hermit- 
thrush,  a  bird  well  known  for  the  beauty 
of  its  song  throughout  the  White  Moun- 
tains and  the  more  northern  districts  of 
Maine,  is  to  be  found  breeding  and  sing- 
ing on  our  own  Wachusett. 


THE   BIRDS   OF   PRINCETON.  IOI 

In  the  first  place,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
I  have  heard  sing  in  Princeton  nearly  all 
the  birds  we  hear  sing  in  Worcester.  The 
scarlet  tanager,  the  indigo-bird,  the  king- 
bird, the  wood-thrush,  and  the  humming- 
bird, which  had  long  escaped  me,  I  have 
at  last  succeeded  in  finding.  But  there  are 
others  which  still  remain  unfound.  The 
chief  of  these  are  the  veery,  or  Wilson's 
thrush,  the  warbling-vireo,  the  rose-breasted 
grosbeak,  the  red-shouldered  blackbird, 
the  crow  blackbird,  the  barn-swallow,  the 
white-breasted  swallow,  and  the  night- 
hawk.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
many  species  of  birds,  the  individuals  of 
which  are  much  more  numerous  here  than 
at  home. 

Of  all  Princeton  birds,  the  most  abun- 
dant, persistent,  and  self-asserting  is  the 
chewink.  Chewinkville,  or  Towheetown, 
would  be  a  most  appropriate  denomina- 
tion of  Princeton  upon  any  ornithological 
system  of  nomenclature  of  our  Worcester 
County  towns.  Then  the  sweet-singing 
vesper-sparrow  is  to  be  found  everywhere, 


102      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

pouring  forth  most  lavishly  his  beautiful 
lisping  ditty,  as  might  naturally  be  ex- 
pected in  a  high,  breezy  country  like  that 
of  Princeton.  While  in  Worcester  we  hear 
him  only  on  the  more  distant  hills  about 
the  city,  here  he  is  heard  on  the  town 
common  itself,  where  he  actually  takes  the 
place  of  the  obnoxious  English  sparrow,  — 
a  bird  which,  I  omitted  to  mention,  is  not 
included  in  the  avifauna  of  this  town.  In 
Worcester  the  purple-finch  and  bluebird 
are  occasionally  heard,  but  here  we  hear 
these  delicious  songsters  along  the  village 
street  on  every  side.  I  use  the  word  "  de- 
licious "  in  speaking  of  the  song  of  the 
bluebird  advisedly,  for  though  I  had  never 
known  it  before,  I  have  now  discovered  that 
he  is  a  singer  of  no  mean  ability.  His 
singing  is  almost  as  profuse  as  the  robin's, 
and  he  will  sometimes  continue  singing 
from  the  same  perch  half  an  hour  at 
a  time  in  the  most  impassioned  manner. 
Though  I  miss  here  the  pretty  warble  of 
the  warbling-vireo,  his  place  is  easily  sup- 
plied by  the  purple-finch,  whose  song, 


THE  BIRDS   OF   PRINCETON.          103 

though  similar,  is  somewhat  superior  to 
his.  I  never  in  my  life  heard  such  singing 
from  that  much  under-estimated  thrush, 
the  American  robin,  as  here  in  Princeton. 
The  Princeton  air  would  seem  to  have  pu- 
rified and  exalted  his  voice,  and  his  kinship 
to  the  veery  and  hermit-thrush  is  made 
manifest. 

In  Worcester  the  pretty  goldfinch,  the 
little  yellow  bird  with  the  black  wings,  is 
not  very  abundant.  Here  he  is  seen  fly- 
ing in  all  directions  with  his  pretty  dipping 
flight,  and  uttering  his  canary-like  twitter. 
The  handsome  meadow-lark  is  not  uncom- 
mon, though  found  in  nothing  like  such 
abundance  as  along  the  intervals  of  the 
Blackstone  River  in  the  towns  below  Wor- 
cester. But  the  merry  bobolink  pours 
down  his  rollicking  song  from  over  our 
heads  in  every  meadow.  Here  you  do 
not  go  out  of  town  to  seek  him,  and  the 
best  place  I  know  to  hear  him  is  from  the 
east  piazza  of  the  Wachusett  House  and 
from  Mr.  Bullock's  pretty  cottage.  In 
July  and  August,  when  the  town  will  be 


104      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

visited  by  crowds  of  people  from  the  city, 
the  bobolink  will  have  become  tuneless, 
but  we  hope  that  his  music  is  appreciated 
by  the  few  fortunate  enough  to  be  already 
here.  Another  bird,  however,  of  a  very 
different  temper  from  the  bobolink's,  the 
whippoorwill,  or  the  wish-ton-wish,  as  he 
was  called  by  the  Indians,  is  heard  every 
evening  from  the  village  common,  and 
he  will  continue  to  emit  throughout  the 
summer  his  weird,  sepulchral  cry  for 
the  benefit  of  the  visitors  of  July  and 
August. 

About  Princeton  his  near  congener,  the 
nighthawk,  does  not  contest  the  field  with 
him,  but  leaves  the  whippoorwill  to  his 
solitary  glory. 

One  of  the  handsomest  and  most  musi- 
cal of  our  wood-warblers,  the  tiny  Mary- 
land yellow-throat,  which  I  had  hardly 
expected  to  find  here  in  Princeton,  as  he 
is  generally  found  in  low,  swampy  places, 
is  not  uncommon,  and  his  lively  twittitee,  • 
twittitee,  twittitee,  often  greets  my  ear. 
The  black-and-white  creeping-warbler  is 


THE   BIRDS    OF   PRINCETON.  IDS 

also  often  seen  here,  as  is  the  redstart, 
whose  brisk  trill  so  often  salutes  you  on 
going  out  of  the  open  into  the  forest. 
The  chimney-swifts  are  very  abundant,  the 
chimneys  of  nearly  every  farm-house  seem- 
ing to  be  repositories  of  their  nests.  Of 
the"  swallows,  the  cliff  or  eave  swallow 
seems  to  be  the  prevailing  species ;  the 
bank-swallows,  I  am  told,  are  not  uncom- 
mon, but  the  white-breasted  and  the  barn 
are  very  rare. 

Yesterday,  while  sitting  in  the  stony  pas- 
ture back  of  the  Mt.  Pleasant  House,  where 
the  well-known  authoress  "  H.  H."  is  said 
to  have  passed  much  of  her  time  during 
her  yearly  visits  to  Princeton,  we  could 
not  help  remarking  the  peculiar  sense  of 
wildness  and  remoteness  which  the  ring- 
ing, vibrating  song  of  the  bush-sparrow 
produced  on  the  mind.  This  little  bird, 
about  the  size  of  the  chipping-sparrow,  is 
the  least  known  of  all  our  common  spar- 
rows, but  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  his 
clear,  ringing  whistle  can  fail  to  attract 
attention. 


106      BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT   WORCESTER. 

Wilson  Flagg,  the  pioneer  of  popular 
ornithologists,  writing  some  thirty  years 
ago,  tells  us  that  the  voice  of  the  quail  or 
bob-white  is  no  longer  heard  in  the  land,  — 
that,  being  a  permanent  resident  with  us, 
he  is  destroyed  in  vast  numbers  by  the 
severity  of  our  winters,  and  now  that 
the  taste  of  the  epicure  and  the  gun  of  the 
fowler  are  thrown  into  the  scale  against 
him,  the  quail's  speedy  extermination  is  at 
hand.  My  Worcester  experience  would 
most  certainly  point  to  the  verification  of 
Flagg's  predictions,  but  here  in  Princeton 
it  is  very  different.  "Bob-white"  or  " More 
wet"  as  it  is  sometimes  translated,  cheery 
and  strong,  greets  you  from  every  pasture, 
meadow,  and  hillside.  It  may  be  that 
the  past  open  winter  explains  this  unu- 
sual abundance  of  the  toothsome  quail,  - 
whereof  all  sportsmen  and  epicures  take 
notice ! 

The  crow  is  more  a'bundant  here  than  in 
Worcester,  and  seems  even  more  wild,  sav- 
age, and  unapproachable.  According  to 
Thoreau,  these  birds  embody  the  departed 


THE  BIRDS   OP   PRINCETON.          IO/ 

spirits  of  the  old  Indian  sagamores.  This 
is  certainly  a  more  poetical  explanation  of 
their  hostility  to  the  white  man  than  to 
attribute  it  to  the  effect  of  the  white  man's 
gun. 

As  for  the  thrushes,  the  robins,  the  brown- 
thrushes,  and  the  cat-birds  are  as  abundant 
about  Princeton  as  they  are  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Worcester.  As  for  the  smaller 
thrushes,  the  sylvan  minstrels  par  excel- 
lence, the  wood-thrush  is  heard  constantly 
in  the  grove  just  northwest  of  the  village. 
The  veery,  which  I  have  heard  repeatedly 
this  season  and  last  in  the  peat-meadow 
woods  near  Worcester,  and  which  is,  on 
the  whole,  a  common  bird  in  that  vicinity, 
I  have  failed  to  hear  at  all  in  Princeton. 
This  was  hardly  unexpected  to  me,  as  I 
knew  that  the  veery  generally  lives  in  low 
woods  near  ponds,  and  there  are  no  ponds 
near  Princeton  except  Wachusett  Pond,  the 
other  side  of  the  mountain,  which  I  have 
not  yet  visited.  Now  the  hermit-thrush  is 
closely  allied  both  to  the  wood-thrush  and 
the  veery,  but  belongs  to  the  Canadian 


108       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

fauna,  while  the  other  two  belong  to  the' 
Apalachian.  It  is  a  well-known  fact,  how- 
ever, that  on  the  sides  of  mountains  we 
often  find  birds  and  flowers  alike  which 
properly  belong  to  regions  much  further 
north,  the  difference  in  altitude  correspond- 
ing to  the  difference  in  latitude,  so  that  the 
climates  of  the  northern  low  lands  and  of 
the  southern  high  lands  are  the  same. 
Moreover  I  had  seen  the  common  slate- 
colored  snow-bird,  which  is  especially  char- 
acteristic of  the  Canadian  fauna,  near  the 
summit  of  Wachusett  in  August,  and  felt 
convinced  that  it  must  have  nested  there, 
as  it  was  too  early  for  the  fall  migrations. 
Now,  if  the  snow-bird  nested  there,  it  was 
fair  to  suppose  that  the  hermit-thrush 
nested  there  also,  and  might  therefore  be 
heard  singing  up  on  the  mountain  in  the 
month  of  June.  Accordingly  I  took  a  trip 
to  the  mountain  yesterday  with  the  express 
purpose  of  solving  this  interesting  prob- 
lem, if  possible.  But  I  had  never  heard 
the  song  of  the  hermit  and  had  never  been 
able  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  description  of 


THE  BIRDS   OF   PRINCETON.  IOQ 

it  either  from  the  books  or  from  persons 
who  had  heard  it.  Some  authorities  com- 
pare the  hermit's  song  to  that  of  the  veery, 
others  to  that  of  the  wood-thrush.  I  con- 
sidered, however,  that  I  knew  thoroughly, 
and  in  all  their  variations,  the  songs  of 
these  two  birds,  and  I  felt  sure  that  I 
should  recognize  at  once  as  belonging  to 
this  wonderful  family,  embracing  the  veery, 
the  wood-thrush,  the  hermit-thrush,  the 
olive-back  thrush,  and  the  gray-cheeked 
thrush,  any  song  that  did  actually  belong 
to  it.  The  olive-backed  and  gray-cheeked 
are  arctic  thrushes,  so  that  if  I  heard  the 
songs  of  any  thrush  belonging  to  this  fam- 
ily which  I  had  never  heard  before,  it 
would  be  the  song  of  the  hermit. 

I  reached  the  summit  about  six  o'clock 
in  the  evening.  On  the  way  up  I  heard 
oven-birds  and  wood-pewees  at  frequent 
intervals.  I  was  also  much  delighted  at 
finding  again,  near  the  top,  my  snow-birds 
of  last  summer.  This  time  I  was  sure  they 
were  nesting  there,  as  was  plainly  shown 
by  their  demonstrations  while  I  remained 


110       BIRD-SONGS   ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

in  their  neighborhood.  On  the  way  up, 
too,  I  was  encouraged  by  hearing  a  whistle 
which  seemed  to  answer  Burroughs's  de- 
scription of  the  whistle  of  the  hermit. 
Of  course  the  return  down  the  mountain 
would  furnish  the  true  test,  as  it  would 
then  be  just  the  time  of  day  when  all  the 
thrushes  of  this  family  are  most  likely  to 
sing.  Accordingly,  about  half-past  six,  I 
slowly  began  my  descent  down  the  bridle- 
path. The  oven-birds  seemed  never  to  tire 
of  singing,  though  I  was,  in  my  impatience, 
almost  tired  of  hearing  them. 

I  had  now  gone  nearly  half-way  down, 
and  was  getting  pretty  thoroughly  dis- 
couraged, for  I  had  little  hope  of  hearing 
them  in  the  lower  zone  of  the  mountain. 
Suddenly,  away  off  to  the  eastward,  but 
brought  to  my  ears  with  perfect  clearness 
by  the  strong  east  wind,  a  song  arose  once, 
twice,  and  yet  again,  until  I  finally  had 
heard  at  least  eight  or  ten  strains.  Then 
the  angry  cry  of  a  blue-jay  was  heard  in 
the  same  direction,  and  the  singing  ceased. 
I  waited  half  an  hour  to  hear  it  again,  but 


THE   BIRDS  OF   PRINCETON.          Ill 

in  vain.  I  shall  return  to  the  mountain  to- 
morrow* evening,  and  hope  to  hear  it  a 
second  time ;  but  it  would  not  be  necessary 
in  order  to  convince  me  more  positively 
that  I  had  heard  the  hermit-thrush.  There 
is  no  possibility  of  confounding  it  with  the 
veery;  the  three  or  four  simple  bars  of 
the  veery's  beautiful  song  have  nothing  in 
common  with  it.  It  is  more  like  the  song 
of  the  wood-thrush,  but  with  all  the  disagree- 
able features  eliminated.  It  is  a  continu- 
ous, not  an  interrupted  song  like  that  of 
the  wood-thrush.  Then  the  hermit's  song 
is  much  simpler  than  his,  and  wants  the 
jingles  and  staccato  notes  of  the  wood- 
thrush's  song,  which  are  generally  con- 
sidered such  blemishes.  Then  there  is 
absolutely  nothing  corresponding  to  the 
beautiful  airoee  of  the  wood-thrush.  The 
song  I  heard  consisted  of  three  soft  melo- 
dious whistles  in  the  same  key,  followed 
immediately  by  three  more  notes  in  a  very 
different  key.  The  whole  was  repeated  in 
rapid  succession  until  it  ceased  altogether. 
That  it  was  the  hermit-thrush  I  am  sure, 


112       BIRD-SONGS  ABOUT  WORCESTER. 

and  this  bird  must  now  be  added  to  the 
list  of  birds  who  nest  and  rear  their  young 
in  Worcester  county.  But  I  must  hear 
the  song  again  before  I  am  willing  to 
yield  it  precedence  over  our  own  incom- 
parable veery. 


X. 

OFF  CAPE  COD. 

WHALING   IN    MASSACHUSETTS  BAY. 

PROVINCE-TOWN,  BARNSTABLE  COUNTY, 
Aug.  12,  1887. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  EDITOR,  —  Since  my 
arrival  in  this  old  fishing-town,  whales 
have  been  the  absorbing  topic  of  conver- 
sation, not  only  among  the  transient  sum- 
mer-boarders, but  among  the  permanent 
residents  as  well.  A  few  days  before  I 
came,  a  large  school  of  fin-back  whales, 
for  the  first  time  in  two  years,  made  its 
appearance  at  the  entrance  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  and  ever  since  there  has  been 
great  excitement  here.  Several  of  the 


114  OFF  CAPE  COD- 

guests  of  the  Gifford  House,  the  hotel 
where  I  am  stopping,  had  been  out  whal- 
ing, and  reported  rare  sport.  The  unvary- 
ing verdict  has  been  that  there  was  noth- 
ing to  be  compared  with  it  for  a  moment. 
So  your  correspondent,  thinking  that 
such  an  opportunity  ought  not  to  be 
missed,  turned  out  at  4.30  yesterday  morn- 
ing, and  walking  down  to  Union  wharf, 
found  there  the  stanch  little  steamer, 
"  A.  B.  Nickerson,"  J.  S.  Nickerson  com- 
mander, all  ready  to  set  out  for  the  day's 
whaling.  The  morning  was  somewhat 
cloudy,  but  the  wind  was  southwest,  and 
everything  promised  a  pleasant  day.  Be- 
sides the  captain  and  crew,  there  were  on 
board  a  Marlboro  editor  and  his  son,  a 
Boston  provision  merchant,  and  myself. 
The  Boston  man  had  been  out  the  day 
before  and  had  been  so  infatuated  with 
the  sport  that  he  could  not  forego  its 
repetition.  The  editor,  perched  upon  the 
hurricane-deck,  spent  most  of  the  time 
taking  voluminous  notes,  and  I  trust  his 
Marlboro  paper  may  escape  the  notice 


WHALING   IN  THE   BAY.  IIS 

of  your  readers,  so  that  all  indivious  com- 
parisons of  our  respective  efforts  may  be 
avoided. 

Steaming  out  of  the  magnificent  harbor 
of  Provincetown,  the  only  harbor  on  a  lee 
shore  within  two  hundred  miles,  we  are 
soon  off  the  Race  Point  lighthouse,  which 
guards  the  tip  end  of  Cape  Cod.  As  we 
stand  out  to  sea,  the  low,  sandy  coast-line 
of  the  back  of  the  cape  comes  into  full 
view.  Away  off  to  the  southeast  we  can 
just  make  out  the  celebrated  Highland 
lighthouse,  one  of  the  three  "  primary 
lights  "  of  New  England.  This  is  the  first 
light  that  greets  the  trans-atlantic  voyager 
on  entering  Massachusetts  Bay.  Five 
miles  nearer  and  easily  distinguishable, 
we  see  the  terrible  Peaked  (pronounced 
Picket)  Hills  bar,  with  its  important  life- 
saving  station.  This  is  the  most  dangerous 
point  on  the  whole  coast,  and  never  a 
winter  passes  without  leaving  many  a 
wreck  on  these  insidious  sand-bars,  which 
extend  nearly  a  mile  out  to  sea.  During  the 
Revolutionary  War  H.  M.  S.  "  Somerset," 


Il6  OFF  CAPE  COD. 

one  of  the  British  men-of-war  that  had  cov- 
ered the  red-coats  while  crossing  to  Bunker 
Hill,  and  afterwards  set  fire  to  Charlestown, 
was  wrecked  at  the  Peaked  Hills,  to  the 
great  joy  of  the  people  of  the  Cape,  to 
whom  this  vessel  had  long  been  a  terror. 
There  were  more  than  four  hundred  souls 
on  board,  many  of  whom  were  swallowed 
up  by  the  sea,  and  their  bodies  buried  in 
Deadmen's  Hollow,  near  by.  The  sur- 
vivors, among  them  Captain  Aubrey,  the 
commander  of  the  vessel,  were  marched 
to  Boston  as  prisoners-of-war  by  the  Barn- 
stable  militia.  The  vessel  was  thrown  up 
high  on  the  beach,  and  after  a  few  years 
was  wholly  buried  in  the  sand.  Within 
two  or  three  years  the  constantly  shifting 
sands,  after  more  than  a  hundred  years, 
again  revealed  to  view  the  live-oak  timbers 
of  the  old  war-ship.  Many  are  the  relics 
in  Provincetown  obtained  by  the  towns- 
people during  the  temporary  exhumation. 
At  the  present  time  the  vessel  is  again 
imbedded  in  sand  to  the  depth  of  nearly 
thirty  feet.  This  is  only  one  of  the 


WHALING   IN  THE   BAY.  1 1/ 

innumerable  shipwrecks  to  be  charged  to 
the  account  of  this  bar. 

An  old  sea-captain  told  me  how,  not 
many  years  ago,  he  saw  an  Italian  brig, 
the  "  Giovanne,"  dashed  to  pieces  at  the 
Peaked  Hills,  and  all  but  one  of  her  crew 
drowned  before  his  eyes.  No  living  soul 
could  help  them,  as  no  life-boat  could 
possibly  get  through  the  great  foaming 
breakers  which  rolled  in  more  than  thirty 
feet  high.  He  said  the  captain,  a  great, 
powerful  fellow,  several  times  swam  almost 
up  to  the  shore,  but  was  as  often  swept 
back  by  the  undertow.  At  last  he  was  seen 
to  give  up  the  unequal  contest,  throw  up 
his  hands,  and  sink  below  the  waves ;  and 
after  the  storm  his  body  was  thrown  up  on 
the  beach,  together  with  those  of  his  crew. 

Within  a  few  years,  in  the  month  of 
November,  three  of  the  crew  of  the  life- 
boat, including  the  captain,  all  Province- 
town  men,  were  drowned  while  trying  to 
reach  a  stranded  vessel,  a  part  of  whose 
crew  they  had  already  saved.  This  was 
the  first  wreck  on  the  coast  after  the 


Il8  OFF   CAPE   COD. 

acquittal  of  the  captain  on  the  charge  of 
cowardice.  He  had  been  thus  accused 
because  he  had  refused  to  put  out  to  a 
shipwrecked  vessel,  while  a  volunteer  crew 
from  Provincetown  manned  the  life-boat 
and  rescued  the  imperilled  crew.  On  his 
acquittal,  however,  he  took  the  first  op- 
portunity offered  to  redeem  himself,  and 
expiated  by  his  life  any  past  offence  of 
which  he  might  have  been  guilty. 

Before  the  establishment  of  the  life- 
saving  station,  moreover,  many  a  poor 
fellow  whom  the  waves  had  spared  died 
of  cold  and  exposure  while  wandering 
about  in  midwinter  over  the  barren  \vastes 
of  sand  which  stretch  back  for  over  two 
miles  towards  Provincetown.  But  enough 
of  these  sad  stories  of  shipwreck  and  death, 
which  are  only  too  common  on  this  coast. 

Before  we  were  five  miles  beyond  Race 
Point  we  heard  from  the  man  on  the  look- 
out above  the  inspiring  cry  of  "  There  she 
blows !  "  and  before  long,  whales  could  be 
seen  spouting  in  all  directions,  rolling  and 
tossing  like  great  porpoises.  It  is  a  great 


WHALING  IN  THE   BAY.  1 19 

mistake  to  suppose  that  whales  spout  out 
great  volumes  of  water,  as  I  remember  they 
were  represented  as  doing  in  the  pictures 
in  the  geographies.  They  really  spout  out 
no  water  at  all,  but  the  slight  spray  which 
is  usually  seen  is  the  water  above  their 
blow-holes,  which  is  forced  into  the  air 
when  the  whale  exhales. 

It  may  be  well  right  here  to  describe 
the  peculiar  method  of  killing  the  fin-back 
whale,  the  only  whale  common  on  our 
coast.  The  harpoon  and  lance,  which  are 
so  effective  against  the  sperm,  right,  and 
humpback  whales,  are  of  very  little  avail 
against  the  fin-back.  This  whale  is  long 
and  sTender,  and  "  just  made  for  running," 
as  an  old  whaler  told  me.  When  har- 
pooned they  will  "  run  the  nails  out  of  a 
boat  in  no  time,"  going  at  the  rate  of 
almost  a  mile  a  minute.  A  few  years  ago 
some  young  men  from  the  town,  who  had 
been  foolish  enough  to  harpoon  a  fin-back, 
narrowly  escaped  drowning,  being  picked 
up  by  a  passing  vessel  just  as  their  boat 
was  sinking.  Therefore  in  killing  this 


120  OFF  CAPE   COD. 

whale  a  bomb-lance,  a  comparatively  re- 
cent invention,  is  now  always  employed. 
This  lance  is  hollow  and  charged  with 
powder.  It  is  fired  out  of  a  heavy  gun  or 
blunderbuss,  the  powder  in  the  gun  ignit- 
ing a  fuse  at  the  end  of  the  lance,  which 
explodes  in  about  fourteen  seconds.  If 
the  lance  has  been  fired  into  a  vital  part, 
the  explosion  generally  results  in  the 
speedy  death  of  the  whale. 

Although  the  whales  were  so  numerous, 
we  at  first  had  considerable  trouble  in 
getting  a  shot  at  them.  These  fin-back 
whales  are  in  the  habit  of  spouting  five  or 
six  times,  and  then,  having  filled  their 
lungs  with  air,  they  go  down  to  the  bottom 
to  feed,  often  remaining  there  for  a  long 
time.  Unless,  therefore,  you  are  pretty 
near  them  when  they  first  come  up,  it  is 
impossible  to  get  near  enough  to  shoot 
them.  At  last,  as  luck  would  have  it,  a 
whale  comes  up  to  spout  for  the  first  time 
within  an  eighth  of  a  mile  of  us.  All 
steam  is  crowded  on,  and  off  we  dash  in 
the  direction  of  the  whale.  Again  he  rises 


WHALING   IN  THE  BAY.  121 

to  blow,  and  again  and  again.  We  are 
now  very  near  him,  and  the  fifth  time  he 
seems  to  the  novice  to  present  a  capital 
shot,  being  less  than  a  rod  distant.  The 
noise  of  his  blowing  is  like  a  locomotive 
letting  off  steam,  and  we  can  trace  the 
outline  of  his  vast  body  long  after  he  has 
disappeared  beneath  the  surface.  On 
board  there  is  the  intensest  excitement. 
The 'captain  and  mate,  standing  far  out  on 
the  bowsprit-like  bridge,  with  guns  in 
hand,  share  '  the  excitement.  Will  the 
whale  blow  again?  That  is  the  all-impor- 
tant question  which  agitates  us.  If  he 
does  it  will  be  our  last  chance,  as  it 
will  be  his  sixth  blowing.  But  the  sus- 
pense is  of  short  duration.  Just  ahead  of 
us  his  head  comes  slowly  into  view.  At 
full  speed  we  dash  up  alongside,  and  before 
his  ponderous  body  is  again  submerged 
two  bomb-lances  enter  it  just  behind 
the  left  shoulder.  We  are  at  once  all  on 
the  alert,  listening  for  the  explosion  of  the 
lance.  We  hear  nothing  but  the  dashing 
of  the  waves  against  the  steamer's  sides, 


122  OFF   CAPE   COD. 

and  it  is  evident  that  the  lance  has  failed 
to  explode.  Still  the  whale  must  be 
seriously  injured.  We  strain  our  eyes  in 
every  direction  for  the  next  blowing,  for 
a  wounded  whale  is  generally  obliged  to 
come  up  very  often  to  breathe.  Soon  we 
see  a  whale  blow  an  eighth  of  a  mile  off 
our  starboard  bow,  and  the  man  at  the 
look-out  declares  it  to  be  the  wounded 
whale.  He  knows  it,  he  says,  because 
there  is  "  something  queer  about  his 
spout"  So  after  him  we  tear,  and  for 
at  least  an  hour  continue  to  pursue  him. 
At  last  the  captain,  in  great  disgust,  and 
with  difficulty  repressing  his  angry  feelings 
towards  the  man  at  the  masthead,  declares 
we  are  after  the  wrong  whale,  and  might 
as  well  return  home  as  follow  him  out 
to  sea  any  further.  So  we  turn  around, 
considerably  crestfallen,  having  given  up 
all  hope  of  ever  seeing  the  wounded  whale 
again.  In  the  meantime  I  retired  to  the 
cabin  for  a  nap,  having  made  up  my  mind 
that  whaling  was  over  for  the  day.  Before 
long,  however,  I  am  aroused  by  a  great 


WHALING   IN  THE   BAY.  123 

commotion  on  deck,  and  rushing  up  the 
companion-way  find  that  a  whale  whose 
spout  was  flecked  with  blood  has  just  been 
seen  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away  on  our  port  bow.  From  this  time  to 
the  death  of  the  whale  I  never  saw  such 
excited  men  as  those  on  board  the  steamer, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the  mate,  an 
old  whaler,  who  seemed  to  be  reasonably 
cool.  As  for  the  captain,  he  appeared  to 
be  the  most  excited  man  on  board.  Well, 
we  soon  succeeded  in  getting  another  shot, 
and  this  time,  as  before,  the  lance  failed  to 
explode,  and  off  goes  the  whale  with  un- 
diminished  speed.  The  next  time  he  rises, 
however,  his  spout  is  more  deeply  tinged 
with  blood  than  before.  Again  we  steam 
after  him  at  full  speed,  and  soon  come  up 
alongside  as  he  rises  to  blow.  This  time, 
thinking  the  end  is  near,  and  fearing  that 
the  whale  will  sink  when  dead,  the  captain 
casts  a  harpoon  into  him.  Off  he  rushes 
with  eight  hundred  feet  of  rope  behind, 
with  the  buoy  attached  to  the  rope  dancing 
along  through  the  water  at  a  very  lively 


124  OFF  CAPE  COD- 

rate.  It  soon  becomes  plain  that  the 
whale  is  not  going  to  die  so  easily.  We 
attempt  to  get  another  shot,  but  find  it 
even  more  difficult  than  before.  It  is  im- 
possible to  tell  what  direction  the  whale  is 
going  to  take.  Now  he  appears  on  our 
port  and  now  on  our  starboard  bow,  and 
we  are  unable  to  get  anywhere  near  him. 
Finally  the  captain,  fuming  and  swearing, 
and  declaring  that  even  now  we  shall  lose 
the  whale,  rope  and  all,  calls  down  the  man 
at  the  masthead,  whom  he  takes  severely 
to  task  for  his  inability  to  follow  the  whale 
under  water,  mounts  aloft  himself,  and  in 
stentorian  tones  shouts  out  his  orders  to 
the  man  at  the  wheel.  Double  caution  is 
now  necessary  to  prevent  the  rope  getting 
foul  of  our  rudder,  which  untoward  ac- 
cident would  very  speedily  put  an  end  to 
the  chase.  Every  time  the  whale  rises  to 
spout  the  waves  are  crimson  with  his 
blood  for  many  feet  around,  and  the  blood 
is  plainly  seen  pouring  out  of  the  holes 
in  his  sides,  made  by  the  lances.  Once 
he  comes  up  to  spout  directly  under  the 


WHALING  IN  THE   BAY.  125 

vessel,  and  the  shock  of  the  collision  nearly 
throws  us  off  our  feet.  The  front  deck 
is  covered  with  blood  from  his  spout. 
Finally  the  mate,  who  all  this  time  has 
remained  stationed  on  the  bridge  in  front, 
succeeds  in  getting  another  shot,  and  a 
dull  report  tells  us  that  the  lance  has  ex- 
ploded. According  to  all  precedents  the 
whale  should  have  died  at  once  then  and 
there.  The  mate  can  scarcely  believe  his 
eyes  when,  a  couple  of  minutes  later,  a 
'bloody  spo~ut  on  our  port  bow  announces 
that  the  whale  has  still  considerable  life 
left.  It  is  nearly  half  an  hour  before 
another  shot  is  secured.  Again  the  lance 
explodes,  and  again  the  whale  disappears 
from  view.  The  mate,  in  great  wrath, 
with  a  mighty  oath,  shouts  out  to  the 
captain  aloft  that  he  has  fired  hfs  last  shot, 
and,  if  he  has  not  killed  the  whale  this 
time,  the  captain  has  got  to  come  down  and 
kill  him  himself.  For  more  than  a  minute 
nothing  is  seen ;  then  the  whale's  back 
appears  above  the  surface  of  the  water,  a 
tremor  seems  to  pass  through  his  whole 


126  OFF   CAPE   COD. 

frame,  and  then  he  turns  over  on  his  side 
dead,  stretching  out  nearly  sixty  feet, 
with  his  flukes  high  above  the  water.  All 
hands  agreed  that  this  was  the  gamiest 
whale  they  had  ever  killed.  Any  of  the 
last  three  shots,  the  mate  declared,  would 
o  have  killed  a  "  new "  whale,  but  when  a 
whale,  he  said,  was  mortally  wounded, 
he  would  die  when  he  got  ready,  and  you 
couldn't  hurry  him  by  shooting  him  again. 
After  the  death  of  the  whale  the  ex- 
citement rather  increased  than  diminished. 
Down  comes  the  captain  from  the  mast- 
head, and  thick  and  fast  gives  his  orders 
for  securing  the  whale  before  he  sinks.  In 
this  case,  however,  there  was  no  occasion 
for  hurry.  It  soon  became  evident  that 
this  whale  would  float;  and  after  cutting 
off  its  flukes,  to  prevent  resistance  to  the 
water,  we  soon  had  a  cable  round  his  tail 
and  were  steaming  slowly  home  with  the 
whale  in  tow.  The  whale  had  conducted 
us  nearly  ten  miles  off  Race  Point  and  the 
chase  had  lasted  more  than  five  hours. 
By  five  o'clock  we  had  anchored  the  whale 


WHALING   IN  THE   BAY.  1 27 

off  the  beach  opposite  the  oil  factory, 
where  the  blubber  would  soon  be  con- 
verted into  some  twenty  barrels  of  oil. 

Most  whales  sink  as  soon  as  they  are 
dead,  and  rise  to  the  surface  again  after 
three  or  four  days,  when  they  are  secured 
by  the  whalers.  The  lances  are  marked 
with  the  whaler's  initials  so  as  to  enable 
him  to  prove  his  property.  It  has  recently 
been  decided  in  the  United  States  district 
court  for  the  district  of  Massachusetts,  in  a 
very  important  case  in  which  Provincetown 
and  Wellfleet  parties  were  interested,  that 
these  dead  whales  belong  to  the  whalers 
who  kill  them,  and  not  to  the  man  who 
happens  to  tow  them  ashore.  It  was  held 
that  the  killing  of  a  whale  with  a  bomb- 
lance  was  a  sufficient  appropriation  of  a 
wild  animal  {fercz  natures)  to  constitute 
property.  Had  the  decision  of  the  court 
been  otherwise,  the  whaling  industry  at  the 
Cape  would  soon  become  extinct. 


INDEX. 


BLACKBIRD,  cow,  39,  91,  98 ; 
crow,  17,  91,  101 ;  red- 
shouldered,  or  red-winged, 
18,  91,  101. 

Bluebird,  n,  13,  32,  67,  80, 
88,  92,  102. 

Blue-jay,  87,  no. 

Bobolink,  18,  67,  68,  69,  70, 
79.  95>  97,  99,  103. 

Bob-white,  106. 

Bunting,  bay-winged,  21,  83  ; 
towhee,  38,  85. 

CATBIRD,  18,  42,  44,  45,  80, 

98,  107. 
Cedar-bird,  77. 
Chebec,  53. 
Cherry-bird,  77. 
Chewink,  38,  39,  53,  72,  81, 

85,  95,  ioi. 

Chickadee,  15,  16,  42,95. 
Cow-bird,  39,  40,41. 
Crow,  50,  87,  106. 
Cuckoo,  40,  67,  73,  91. 


FINCH,  grass,  21 ;  purple,  i8> 
20,  24,  25,  26,  30,  50,  52, 
59,  91,  98,  102. 

Flicker,  17. 

Flycatcher,  least,  43,  53. 

GOATSUCKERS,  62,  8r. 
Goldfinch,  18,  20,  27,  28,  50, 

91,  98, 103. 
Golden  robin,  80,  85, 
Grackle,  blue,  17. 
Greenlets,  52. 
Grosbeak,  blue,  57  ;  cardinal, 

57;   rose- breasted,  55,   56, 

97,  98,  ioi. 
Ground  robin,  38,  85. 

HANGBIRD,  49. 
Highhole,  17. 
Huckleberry-bird,  84. 
Humming-bird,  ruby-throated, 
54,  67,  72,  97,  ioi. 

INDIGO-BIRD,  67,  71,  Si,  88, 
89,  98,  ioi. 


